Portraiture

Michael’s portraits are well known for their insight and intensity. images of many of these works may be found on this site. Winner of the prestigious John Player Award (subsequently the BP Portrait, and since 2023 The Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award), Michael has three portrait paintings and one pencil drawing in the National Portrait Gallery (London) collection.

His work can also be found in many notable institutional and private collections. These include the fine portrait collection at Christchurch Hall (Oxford), Church House (Oxford), The Holburne Museum, Bath, Southampton University, Robinson College (Cambridge) and the House of Lords (of the UK Parliament).

Portraiture has consistently been a vital element of his work. The portraits benefit from the attention and commitment that he invests in all his paintings, although the particular demands of portraiture require a different approach.

Michael has never worked from photographs as source material, preferring to work from life. However, the inevitable problems of securing enough sittings with often very busy subjects has led him to develop a unique system for commissioned portraits using stereoscopic (3D) transparencies as a studio aid. This allows him to maintain the required intensity of observation during periods when the sitter is unavailable.

Michael was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2001 since when he has exhibited his portraits and figure paintings at their Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London. He was awarded their Changing Faces Award in 2001 and the Smallwood Architects Prize in 2018.

I liked the strength and originality of his compositions and the authority with which he used colour….. It is a powerful painting which I much admire.

Baroness P D James, on the painting of herself by the artist

In it’s way a minor masterpiece, the portrait [of P D James] itself could hardly be more compelling, Taylor’s acute observation recording a vivid likeness

Robin Gibson, then Chief Curator, National Portrait Gallery, London

This ability to capture the character of the sitter as well as the moment in time is what makes a good portrait. Michael Taylor’s painting of Renata Symonds, a nonagenarian Jungian psychotherapist, projects a lifetime of gravitas in her wise, intense gaze. But he had caught something else, a certain intellectual impatience, characterized by the swing of her hair, the angle of her head and her askew pearl necklace.

The Times

The most striking portrait, for my money, is Michael Taylor’s oil of Julian Bream. For ten minutes I sat and gazed at it and felt I knew Bream. What surprised me was the rather formidable, almost morose, look in the eye….. There is in that portrait something different…..

Sir Alec Guiness

When he had finished the painting, I was very pleased with what he had done. What I admired about him was that he was very sure of himself … his sense of composition was good, and I also liked his sense of colour.

Julian Bream

It is exactly how I feel inside when I am composing.

Sir John Tavener, on first seeing the portrait of himself by the artist

It is how I shall look when I am laid out in my coffin.

Sir John Tavener, on seeing the portrait of himself for the second time

Although his time is usually heavily committed, Michael does accept portrait commissions. If you are considering the commissioning of a portrait from him, you may get in touch via the Contact page of this site. He will be pleased to discuss it with you.