Portrait artist Jonathan Yeo: None of us really know what we actually look like

"A portrait is kind of a document of the relationship between the artist and the sitter, and when that chemistry works, you sense it in the painting."

Jonathan Yeo has painted Hollywood stars, politicians and royalty. One of the foremost portrait painters of his generation, he's now a new judge on Sky Arts Portrait Artist Of The Year.

Well-versed in the power of the portrait, his 2024 "red" painting of King Charles III received a mixed reception.

Joking that the King must have liked it as he still gets invites to Buckingham Palace, he suggests that even the King himself might not be best placed to judge the end result.

Yeo tells Sky News: "The subject is not always the best immediate reaction because we don't know what we look like…

"The interesting bit is getting the reaction of someone who knows them very well. Because that's much more revealing and much more immediate, they know in a split second if you've got it right or not."

Happily, Queen Camilla was reportedly a fan of the work, telling Yeo he had "got him".

And in another apparent royal thumbs-up, the picture itself received its own invitation earlier this year, going on show in the revamped palace gallery.

It's not just royalty enjoying a bit of art - portraiture is seeing a resurgence. Last year, Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $236m (£178m), the most expensive modern painting ever sold at auction.

Meanwhile, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters saw commissions rise 20% in 2024, then a further 40% in 2025. And Portrait Artist Of The Year is seeing a rise in applicants year on year.

'You can't eat art - but it has meaning'

Yeo, who works on commission and typically produces four or five pieces a year, says it's a medium that remains buoyant despite a cost of living crisis.

"It's a luxury good you're making because you can't eat art, but at the same time, I think it goes on meaning a lot to people, and I think there'll always be a market for it, even in the tough times."

And as an artist not afraid to introduce artificial intelligence into his work (a 2024 exhibit merged painting with images created via AI mapping algorithms fed to a 3D scanner) Yeo's not worried about AI coming for his job.

Yeo says: "Certainly for the foreseeable future, it's hard to imagine AI having the same understanding, emotional response and cultural reference points - all the things that make art special."

Yeo isn't the only new judge joining this year's show. Frieze London director Eva Langret and art historian Katy Hessel complete the refreshed line-up.

'What we want is someone to really see us'

Calling her new judging role "the best gig in the world", Hessel - who founded the platform Great Women Artists - says artists are uniquely placed to offer new interpretations of our increasingly polarised world.

She tells Sky News: "Who else to look to, to look at the world in a better way than an artist? They notice, they are observant, they go deep, they don't just look at your face. They question what is going on."

Hessel also says the pictures are about more than just vanity alone.

"The power of a portrait is to not just paint a sort of glorified image of someone but to go beyond, show us something that you capture because that, after all, is what we, as humans, want to have in this world, for someone to really see us."

'They captured something in the eyes that you very rarely see'

The show's host, Stephen Mangan, says in our increasingly digital age, saturated by images, portraiture is a traditional skill, holding its own.

Mangan, who has fronted the show for eight years, tells Sky News: "You can't watch someone write a book, you can't watch someone compose a symphony or think up a poem, but you can watch a blank piece of paper or canvas develop over four hours into a portrait."

Attracting a host of celebrity sitters, actor Lennie James is one of the stars posing for the show's first episode.

Calling it "overwhelming in a weird way", he tells Sky News it was a surprisingly vulnerable experience.

"I didn't expect to be emotionally connected to looking back at three versions of myself. But the artists managed to…

"There were things that they kind of captured in the eyes that I suppose you can't hide, but you very rarely see."

Turns out, in an age when everyone is busy taking pictures of themselves, being truly seen is still something of an art.

Portrait Artist Of The Year starts at 8pm tonight on Sky Arts and NOW.

(c) Sky News 2026: Portrait artist Jonathan Yeo: None of us really know what we actually look like