The sitter in this portrait is the acclaimed actor Tilda Swinton. Her numerous film credits include Caravaggio (1986) directed by Derek Jarman, Orlando (1992), Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia series (2005-2010) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). This portrait was painted by Swinton’s former partner, John Byrne. Byrne has said of this portrait: ‘I always wanted to paint what I thought of as a ‘formal’ in the sense of substantial, life-sized and quintessentially her. In other words, I was out to capture her essence…I wanted to produce something that was more of an icon than a photographic or slavishly realistic image. The big pile of scripts she’s sitting on are the ones she’s turned down and the small pile by her right foot are the ones she’s done.’