Anatomy of a Formal Portrait - Portrait of Bishop Peter Doyle

This is the Official Portrait of the Bishop of Northampton by Simon which hangs alongside the portraits of previous bishops in Bishop’s House, situated beside Northampton Cathedral. The portrait is painted using acrylics on canvas, size 42 x 32 inches (approx 107 x 81 cm).

Simon’s notes

This work was produced from one sitting where I spent a morning with Bishop Peter, getting to know him, taking photos and drawing a few sketches. We moved around various rooms of Bishop’s House, and I decided that I wanted to portray him in the library. Bishop Peter is a kindly man, but has a certain strength and steeliness to his character. This comes in part from his families military background, and indeed he was signed in to Sandhurst when he made the decision to enter the catholic priesthood.

Unlike my informal pencil drawings and paintings, there is a great attention to detail in the setting and background. In fact, there are only a few days work on the face and hands, and if you look at the painting from the rear in front of a window, the light passes through these areas, whereas the rest of the work has quite a layer of paint on it.

The challenge when painting a work of this dimension is to get the right balance of colour and contrast over the work to give the right illusion of perspective and depth, and the majority of the work in the bookshelves and garments.

Below are some detailed close-ups. If you click on the face and hands images, enlargements will open.

Letter from Mgr Provost Séan Healy, Vicar General

Dear Simon,
Now that the portrait of Bishop Peter is completed, I would like to thank you most sincerely for all your attention and hard work in producing the Bishop’s portrait. All have seen it so far are impressed with its likeness to Bishop Peter. It captures his warmth and also some of the sternness needed in a bishop! Most importantly, Bishop Peter himself is delighted with it and that in itself bears witness to your hard work and artistic skills. I hope we will have opportunities to work together in the future.
With every best wish,
Mgr Provost Séan Healy