A portrait created of singer Ed Sheeran in 2015 will be unveiled at the National Portrait Galley in London.
Irish contemporary artist Colin Davidson painted the British singer last year, and now his piece is going on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The oil on canvas painting, titled “Ed Sheeran” and measuring 127 by 117 centimeters, is scheduled to go up Wednesday. It’ll be in Room 39 on the ground floor, according to the Evening Standard.
Davidson, who has also done portraits of people like Queen Elizabeth and Liam Neeson, scored a three-hour sit-down with Sheeran in 2015. It was organized by Sheeran’s dad, John Sheeran, who is a curator currently in the middle of a lecture series on old and modern masters like Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci.
“When painting a portrait I am looking for the moment when the person is almost unaware of me being there, and I feel I got it with Ed,” Davidson told the Standard. “I deliberately didn’t want Ed to perform and that was odd for him.”
Davidson added to Smooth Radio that he hoped the painting allowed people to “glimpse the source of Ed’s unique creativity,” which has landed him two Grammy Awards and countless chart-toppers. Sheeran himself shared it on his personal Instagram page, calling it “wonderful” and amassing nearly 1 million likes in six hours on Tuesday.
Sheeran isn’t the first star to be featured on canvas.
Pop artist Andy Warhol painted a scene from “Flaming Star” featuring Elvis Presley for his 1963 piece “Double Elvis,” and Bob Dylan once had his own show at the National Gallery of Denmark. More recently, in 2013, artist Robert Wilson put on an exhibition at the Louvre featuring portraits of Lady Gaga in the style of artworks like “Portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
