In 2003 Yeo presented a diptych full-frontal nude of the then ICA chairman, Ivan Massow, the entrepreneur and patron of the arts at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

Yeo taught himself to paint in his twenties while recovering from Hodgkin’s Disease. In the early 2000s, he became known for his contemporary realist portraits of well-known figures. His subjects include actors Dennis Hopper, Jude Law, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily Cole, Nicole Kidman, Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, Savile Row tailor Ozwald Boateng, the former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, The Duchess of Cornwall and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. In 2005, his portrait of Erin O’Connor was used to advertise London’s National Portrait Gallery around the world. The painting was used as the front cover of ‘500 Portraits’, a survey of the BP Portrait prize published in 2011.

Yeo created an controversial portrait of George W Bush in 2007, entitled ‘Bush’, which gained worldwide attention. After a commission to paint the US president was reportedly awarded and then withdrawn, Yeo created an image of the President anyway, making a collaged portrait from pornography. The work led to Yeo exhibiting more collages – mainly portraits and nudes – made in the same way.

It was reported that the George Bush collage was seized by Israeli customs on the way to the Banksy-curated ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ exhibition in Bethlehem in December 2007.

In January 2008, Yeo’s official portrait of former Prime Minister Tony Blair was unveiled and struck a public chord with its clear Iraq war reference. It showed an older and wearier-looking Blair wearing a red poppy – a symbol of war remembrance for the British. In line with the political subjects that have featured throughout his work, in 2009, Yeo painted a full-length portrait of David Cameron just before his election to Prime Minister, which was sold at auction in 2010 for £200,000.

At the first of these exhibitions in 2008, Yeo presented ‘Blue Period’ at Lazarides Gallery, owned by Steve Lazarides, a specialist dealer in outsider and street art, known for launching Banksy’ career. The show included the Bush porn portrait as well as new collages of Hugh Hefner and Lucian Freud.

Between 2010 and 2012, Yeo created works based on cosmetic surgery procedures. He presents the faces of women in pre and post-operative states, as a counterpoint to the traditional portrait. This collection of paintings was the subject of two solo exhibitions, ‘You’re Only Young Twice’ at Lazarides in London [1] and ‘(I’ve Got You) Under My Skin’ at Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin [2].

In April 2011, the Queen commissioned Yeo to paint a portrait of David Attenborough for the Royal Collection.

In 2014, the exhibition was shown at The Lowry Gallery in Salford [3] and in 2015, it was on display at the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark in honour of Yeo having painted the first official portrait of the former Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Yeo is art consultant at Soho House group. He has co-curated the clubs worldwide, and designed the now notorious, pornographic leaf wallpaper that adorns several of its walls, including the Dean Street Townhouse in London and Soho House, Berlin. Jonathan Yeo was a judge for the 2010 Art Fund Prize for museums [4]. In 2014 Yeo was on the panel of judges for the BP Portrait Prize [5].