The Gallery, the Artist, and the Amount of Foreground

It sounds like the name of a Peter Greenaway movie: The Portrait Artist, The Portrait Gallery, and The Portrait with Too Much Foreground. The portrait artist involved is Michael Reynolds, member of The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the gallery is the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London, and the portait concerned that by Reynolds of conductor Bernard Haitink. The problem? The NPG's trustees apparently seemed to believe that because they'd commissioned the portrait they had the right to ask for changes... the artist disagreed.

According to a report in Times Online, Reynolds was shocked "at being told, on delivering the painting, that the 'format needed changing' ... it needs cutting down. There’s too much desk in front of Haitink and the head needs sharper delineation’.”

Read More:
• Times Online report
• BBC News report
• Times Online editorial comment
• Art critic Rachel Campbell Johnston on the spat