Tatler’s July issue features three covers – portraits of QEII, King Charles and the Princess of Wales. I wanted to talk about the Kate portrait, because this looks nothing like her. Tatler apparently commissioned Hannah Uzor to make a large-scale portrait of Kate, and Uzor pored over photos of Kate and based this portrait on Kate’s appearance at the state dinner for the South African president in 2022. It was one of Kate’s first big moments as Princess of Wales and she wore the Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara, Diana’s Collingwood diamond-and-pearl earrings and a caped Jenny Packham gown. The photos of Kate weren’t bad, and the look was fine, if a bit uninspiring. Tatler wanted a portrait which would, as they write, celebrate “Britain’s royal star: the woman so many look to for strength, grace and dignity.”

Now, in a large-scale portrait commissioned by Tatler, Hannah Uzor depicts Kate in her newest role – The Princess of Wales.

‘She has really risen up to her role – she was born for this,’ says Uzor in our July cover story, adding that ‘she carries herself with such dignity, elegance and grace.’ The cover, crafted after the artist’s study of over 180,000 archival photographs, still manages to incorporate Kate’s personal passions; projects the public have witnessed the princess develop over many years. The green colour wash nods to her love of gardening, and its blue undertones to the time she spent rowing – a hobby that dates back to those years spent studying art at university.

Uzor – who was born Hannah Hasiciimbwe in Lusaka, Zambia and counts Toulouse Lautrec among her influences – has equally captured another side to Kate. ‘I sense with her the joy of motherhood,’ says the artist, who, like her subject, is a mother of three. More than ever, the image of the Princess sits between the dichotomies of royal portraiture, balancing the ceremonial and the sequestered. She gazes out of this month’s cover, eyes once again locked with the viewer: a princess, mother, wife and artist.

[From Tatler]

LMAO “The green colour wash nods to her love of gardening, and its blue undertones to the time she spent rowing.” Kate is a woman without passions but bless your heart for trying. And all of that for a portrait which looks vaguely like Minka Kelly. Also: this serves as a reminder that there really aren’t that many portraits of Kate. There’s the Paul Emsley one, there was one of Kate and William, and then there’s this mess. Well, at least it won’t go viral like King Charles’s brilliant portrait by Jonathan Yeo.

Cover courtesy of Tatler, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.