Revisiting the art of portraiture

Modern art if ever there was one, photography has not completely phagocytised the age-old art of portraiture, which still has its amateurs and a few artists to satisfy them. The most personal is the Parisian painter Natacha Toutain, who made her name some twenty years ago by painting portraits of stars characterised by the integration of a small photographic element around which the canvas is built. Surfing on the wave of people that characterises contemporary society, she has established herself as an authentic portrait painter of the 21st century and also exercises her art, on demand, to immortalise her clients in a way that is so much more personal than a photographic cliché, however successful it may be.

Dandy: A happy coincidence: the issue in which this interview is published also devotes an article to Giovanni Boldoni, who was one of the most renowned portrait painters of the Belle Epoque. Do you consider yourself a spiritual heiress of the Boldinis, John Singer Sargent and other Gainsboroughs – or less famous and yet talented Carolus-Duran or Eakins?

Natacha Toutain: “Portraiture is a very ancient art, dating back long before photography was invented, and I have a very classical technique as I make a pencil and paint it afterwards, with just the little piece of photo that gives the little contemporary look. But in fact it goes back a long way, because I have this passion for portrait from my father.

You imposed yourself on the art market about twenty years ago with a series of portraits of Steve McQueen that could be described as iconoclastic, since they are marked by this small piece of photo that constitutes your signature, a kind of graphic gimmick. This first model was a success for you, as you have used it in many other paintings, depicting different characters played by the actor, in “Bullit” and “Le Mans” in particular, and then his life as a racing driver, alone or with his family. A beautiful story that led you to meet his family, and in particular his first wife Neil and their son Chad, with whom you formed a special bond. They invited you to the United States, didn’t they?

Yes, in June 2019: Chad McQueen invited me to his home in Palm Spring, where I met his whole family and I became friend with his daughter Madison, Steve McQueen’s granddaughter, who is the one who looks the most like his grandfather physically.

Another “bigger than life” star immortalised in your paintings is Alain Delon. Do you maintain personal relationships with your models once your paintings are known?

I am fortunate to be able to continue to have an emotional or friendly relationship after the various events I have been able to do with them, whether it is with Steve McQueen’s family or Mr. Delon, with whom I correspond regularly. I am also very friendly with Claudia Cardinale. In fact, as my painting is something completely emotional, because I only paint the people I love, so there is a passionate side to it, and when I have the chance to meet them you think I won’t let them go! (laughs)

A few years ago you told me that you had a passion for cinema and another for music. Is this still the case?

Absolutely, in fact I always paint in music. And I paint a lot David Bowie and Mick Jagger, who are my two icons.

You have also appropriated several myths from the cinema, we think of Sharon Stone, Marylin, Clint Eastwood, Brigitte Bardot…

And James Bond, of which I’ve been a big fan since my early youth and the first films, with Sean Connery! After that, I have my little darlings: my favourite has long been Roger Moore.

He is however the least “Bondesque”, for the unconditional fans of franchising…

Yes, but it’s feminine! I obviously also love Sean Connery, whom I have painted several times, and I was lucky enough to meet Pierce Brosnan, who is very handsome, very elegant and absolutely charming. And I love to paint Daniel Craig, who shocked me a little bit at first because he was a bit rougher than the image we had of Bond…

… but which is – with Sean Connery – closest to the character written by Ian Flemming…

Exactly, and now I love him, and I’ve done quite a few paintings of him.

What is your starting point when you create a new work? Do you start from a cliché: a poster, a photo in a magazine; or on the contrary, do you think of the canvas and integrate the photographic element afterwards? Some of your canvases are tight shots of a facial expression, others depict a body posture: how do you choose your starting point?

My particularity is this little piece of photography that is part of my painting. I extract it from a photo that inspires me, and I glue this enlarged piece of photo on a thick support, which gives a plus to the portrait; then I do my pencil and then the canvas with oil paint. But the inspiration comes from the choice of the visual. I have a whole photo library in which I pick and choose according to what I want to show of the personality I paint.

Your canvases also include a small part of calligraphy: the name of the subject but not only…

I often write the name of the painted personality, but also a film title, or quotations: sentences that the subject has said or that relate to films he has shot. And as these are often mythical films, it speaks immediately to each of us, and that’s the point.

For example, “Racing is life. All that there is before and after is just waiting” by Steve McQueen, who today appears in the permanent 24 Hours du Mans shop under his portrait…

Exactly.

Another star: Sean Connery, whose recent death has allowed us to discover or rediscover this portrait in the character of the “old Spanish rooster” that he played in “Highlander”.

It’s one of my very first paintings, which I did when I started twenty years ago. We are more used to seeing him in James Bond than in Spanish cockerel, but this role in “Highlander” is the only fascinating character in the film, it captivated me. It gave him an extraordinary dimension that made me want to paint him.

If the majority of your clients are anonymous, your works can also be found in the collections of celebrities, such as the King of Morocco, the King and Queen of Jordan, the Royal Family of Monaco, for whom you work on commission, and in these cases it is no longer a question of painting an admired star but of portraying the client, in your own way, exactly as portrait painters did in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This represents 10% of my work and it is often commissioned by ambassadors of these countries, to offer them to the king or the queen. For example, the portrait of the King of Jordan was commissioned by the ambassador, and when the queen saw her husband’s portrait she wanted me to do hers…

Your future?

A great David Bowie event, to which I want to devote an entire exhibition, for which I am still looking for the location. It will be after the Covid episode, of course. And then I continue Steve McQueen because I have a lot of requests and I never get tired of it, and also BB and a few new ones, like Scarlett Johansson.

You don’t forbid anyone, and you let yourself be inspired by a photo?

Absolutely: it doesn’t go through the intellect, it’s purely emotional: I feel something, it’s like love at first sight. For example I saw Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen’s “Match Point”, I loved her there and decided to paint her. »

Fundamentally independent, Natacha Toutain is not contractually attached to a gallery and her available works can be seen on her website www.natachatoutain.com