Bryan Organ: Picturing People

The first book on British portraitist Bryan Organ.

What unites pop star Elton John, Britain's King Charles III, the late French president Fran ois Mitterrand, and Mr. & Mrs. Sharples, pigeon fanciers in Lancashire? They all sat for distinguished British painter Bryan Organ. Born in 1935, Organ studied art at Loughborough College of Art and Royal Academy Schools before pursuing painting as a full-time career. He received his first commission in 1967, and since then monarchs, politicians, artists, designers, and business executives from around the world have asked him to paint themselves. His portrait of Princess Diana attracted more than one hundred thousand visitors within the first seventy-two hours on public display in 1981.

No other contemporary artist is represented with more works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. Yet, remarkably, no full-scale monograph on Organ has been published to date. Bryan Organ: Picturing People fills this gap, featuring almost eighty of his portraits in full-page plates, alongside preliminary studies and numerous works in other genres, such as animal paintings, still lifes, and designs for album covers. Essays on his life and art by critic Charlotte Mullins, museum directors Chris Stephens and Tristram Hunt, and journalist and news anchorman Jon Snow round off this entertaining and illuminating volume.