Editor’s Letter
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Portraiture
Issue
YUKIMASA IDA PORTRAIT OF NICHOLAS FOULKES N , Editorthe great Waldemar Januszczak tells us in his piece:
what you and I may see as pieces of fruit painted by
Picasso, is, so Waldemar was informed by the late Sir
John Richardson, actually a lascivious portrait of the
painter’s mistress.
Elsewhere in this issue we visit Gilbert & George
in the East End and Yukimasa Ida in his studio in
Japan—very dierent artists, at dierent stages in
their careers, on opposite sides of the earth, and
yet each showing that portraiture is thriving and
evolving. And I am very proud to be able to say that
Sir Peter Blake, everybody’s favourite MBA (Mature
British Artist), agreed to be photographed next to
his self-portrait in the Tate, a portrait by the way that
was photographed for the rst issue of the Sunday
Times Magazine back in 1962. This multiple layering
of photography and portraiture says much about the
modern relationship between canvas and camera.
As ever, all that remains for me to do is to thank
our friends at Christie’s for their support, without
which Vanity Fair On Art would not exist.“From today, painting is dead”—that is what painter
Paul Delaroche is supposed to have said when
seeing his rst daguerreotype in 1839. All I can say
is that it is a good thing he did not tell our cover
star Kehinde Wiley as we would have been robbed,
not only of a memorable cover image (if only more
artists wore suits of armour), but also of a body of
work that includes the epochal painting of President
Obama—a work that has done much to rehabilitate
the sometimes maligned genre of portraiture, the
subject of this year’s Vanity Fair On Art.
As it happens, painting and photography
get on rather well these days as Lady McCullin
demonstrates in her memoir of her husband Sir
Don’s unlikely bromance with Jason Brooks.
Indeed, from time to time painting colludes with
photography, as Hans Ulrich Obrist explains in
his fascinating essay on being painted by the great
German master Gerhard Richter.
We are also very fortunate in having one of
Lucian Freud’s sitters, his daughter Susie Boyt,
write about being painted three times by her father.
Freud painted many portraits and it is the theft
of one in particular—of his mighty contemporary
Francis Bacon—which is the departure point for
Martin Gayford’s riveting examination of their
extraordinary relationship.
Freud was famous for the un¡inching truth of his
work and the unforgiving depiction of his subjects,
but portraiture need not be representative at all asVANITY FAIR On Art
Editor Nicholas Foulkes
Managing Editor Holly Ross
U.S. Editor Dorian May
Art Director Scott Moore Acting Deputy Art Director Tereza Jichova Art Editor Lou Macleod Designer Samantha Totty
Photo Editor Tanjya Holland Parkin Assistant Photo Editors Zoe Gahan, Monica Roche
Chief Copy Editor Sarah Edworthy Copywriter Jessica Burrell Junior Sub-Editor Rose Washbourn
Associate Publisher Clare Schifano
Head of Partnerships Lucie Burton-Salahuddin Senior Advertisement Director Emma Heuser Jewellery Advertisement Director Emma Samuel
Account Managers Emily Goodwin, Natasha Gresh Business & Partnerships Manager Charlotte Taylor
Partnerships Project Manager Hazel Byrne Partnerships Executives Hara Mavrogiorgi, Caroline Sillem
Events Sales Manager Victoria Furse Events Co-ordinator Saffy Altmeyer-Ennis
Senior Production Controller Helen Crouch Acting Production Controller Leonie Kellman Acting Production Co-ordinator Lottie Smith
Publishing Director Kate SlesingerVANITY FAIR ON ART NOVEMBER 201911-19-Eds-Letter.indd 10 24/09/2019 09:59
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