The portrait is the cover of the singer’s latest album West End Girl.
Today the national Portrait Gallery has unveiled a contemporary portrait of singer, songwriter and actor Lily Allen by artist Nieves González. The portrait, now owned by Lily Allen, was used as the cover art for Allen’s latest album, West End Girl, and will be on public display in the Gallery for the next year.
Allen commissioned the painting from Nieves González and subsequently used it as the cover art for West End Girl.
Nieves González is an artist know for her classical oil paintings and contemporary reinterpretation of 17th-century portraiture.
Talking about the news, Lily Allen said: “I’m so pleased to make this special painting available for everyone to see. Nieves captured the feel of the album so brilliantly and I knew immediately it would make a very strong album cover. It seems to me the portrait reflects so many facets of the album – strength, power, vulnerability, determination and confusion, amongst many others – that it acts as a key to the whole listening experience. I love it. I’m so pleased to make this special painting available in the National Portrait Gallery, for everyone to see.”
Meanwhile, Nieves González commented: “I wanted it to be an intimate and direct image, but also powerful. To show her strength, her wisdom, through the eyes of the contemporary women that we are. That balance between the classical and the contemporary was essential to me.
“This work reflects how art and music come together in the act of creation, with all its layers and facets. The fact that the National Portrait Gallery is going to exhibit this piece is overwhelming. This West End girl has become something more than an image, and I feel enormously fortunate to have been part of that journey.Using the language of the great historical portraits is not about looking back, it’s about claiming that authority and putting it at the service of a new narrative.”
The portrait is currently on display as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Contemporary Collection display.