Pete Farrugia speaks with artist Don Heywood about commissions, past triumphs and a mysterious drawing that forms part of the painter’s latest exhibition.
Don Heywood’s celebrated career as an artist spans the decades, with highlights that include portraits of Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth II.
He has worked in London (redesigning Harvey Nichols) and South Africa, where he produced a heritage series of pictures preserving a record of the nation’s traditional costumes and characters.
Heywood also received commissions from the Smithsonian Institution, with a portfolio of his pictures forming part of their permanent archive.
The artist’s current exhibition is a tribute to Pope John Paul II and incorporates a collection of paintings and drawings of the late pontiff that Heywood completed over the past few years.
“I’d just finished a picture of Nelson Mandela and thought to myself, ‘what other person really stands out?’ Well, of all the popes, I think John Paul II was head and shoulders above the rest. The present Pope might be more intelligent but this one had a common touch, a certain charisma, that’s difficult to define. He’s a Pope to remember.”
It was this admiration for Pope John Paul and the many different aspects of his personality that captured Heywood’s imagination.
As a non-Catholic and a cynic to boot, one development in particular has pushed this collection of images to the forefront of the artist’s mind and distinguishes it from all others.
“I’ve been drawing all my life,” says Heywood, “and I’ve always been very serious about my drawings. I was two-thirds of the way through a picture of Pope John Paul when I noticed something curious about the picture – a cross on his forehead. I hadn’t consciously drawn it and still don’t quite know how it got there.”
The image was sent through friends of the artist to the Vatican, where it was determined that the strange appearance of the cross might be classified as some kind of phenomenon.
Heywood continued to create portraits of the Pope but so far, no further mysterious markings have appeared. However, this exhibition is the fruit of that strange encounter – it’s a collection of pictures that incorporates a dazzling display of the beloved Church leader in his various vestments and official capacities.
“I enjoyed painting him with lots of different facial expressions and especially love painting white fabric. Painting white cloth in a realistic way is extremely difficult and I got a great deal of satisfaction from painting him.”
Heywood has also created a life-size diptych of the late Pope, as seen from the front and back – a monumental homage to a larger-than-life historical personality.
“I recently saw a photograph in The Sunday Times (of Malta), of a cardinal embracing the new Auxiliary Bishop. All the colours and fabrics would have made a stunning painting. Who knows, maybe that will happen one day.”
In the art world, commissions are fundamental to securing great work from quality artists. Heywood’s considerable skills would be put to excellent use recreating detailed vestments and exquisite interiors as a historical record in themselves, an archive of precious images from Malta comparable to those he has produced in South Africa, and for the Smithsonian.
“Finding a balance between paying bills and pure artistic work is a challenge for artists,” says Heywood, “but lucky for me, I’ve always loved the work I’ve been asked to do”.
Heywood sees the Maltese art market as especially active considering the island’s size, and the fact that people are eager to collect art is good sign that artists will find the kind of security they need in order to flourish.
“Locally, I admire work by Andrew Micallef and Madeleine Gera. They’re extremely talented and it’s the kind of thing that would do well in America. They like realism there, they’re more open to the style.”
Ultimately, it is the duty and privilege of institutions capable of financing large-scale portfolios to do just that – to promote artists but also provide records of certain transient features in the life of a nation that can best be captured through an artist’s careful eye.
It isn’t the dispassionate removal of a photographic lens but the certainty of a brushstroke that, in some ways, most fully expresses the very human desire towards life as something enduring and made all the more precious for having been noticed at all, in a wonder of detail and an exuberance of colour.
A Tribute to the late Pope John Paul II is on at the M.U.S.E.U.M in Blata l-Bajda until Friday. Limited edition prints of certain paintings are available for purchase.