Posted on the Nobel Committee website
Most of the winners don’t have high-quality photos
Exclusive painter for the Nobel Committee for the past 12 years,
, ‘Author Hangang (54) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on the 10th (local time), and attention is also focusing on Swedish painter Nicklas Elmhed (pictured) who drew a portrait of Hangang posted on the Nobel Committee website. His painting, showing a face with a yellow golden hue, a subtle smile, and short hair, is receiving praise for depicting Hangang’s image well.’,
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, “According to Elmhed’s official website and other sources, he has been employed as the art director for the Nobel Committee since 2012 and has been drawing portraits of all Nobel laureates every year. This is not unrelated to the fact that many laureates do not have publicly available high-quality photos due to dedicating their lives to research. Even when photos are available, they are often from their younger days or several years ago, not capturing their current appearance well. Elmhed also mentioned in a 2019 interview with the international science magazine ‘Popular Science’ that ‘photos of Nobel science laureates were often taken with low-resolution cameras.'”,
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, “As the portrait of the laureate is posted simultaneously with the announcement, Elmhed gets to know the laureate before the press or the public. However, he was reluctant to answer when asked about when the Nobel Committee informs him about the laureate. Instead, he mentioned that he can complete a portrait within a few hours. For example, he revealed that he completed the portrait of Ukrainian female writer Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, in just 40 minutes.”,
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Portrait of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Hangang painted by Swedish painter Nicklas Elmhed. Photo source: Nobel Committee website, “Initially, he painted portraits using blue and yellow. He started using black and gold to paint portraits in 2017, as that’s when the official color for Nobel laureates was determined to be gold. Elmhed stated on his website, ‘I’ve experimented with various gold paints and fell in love with thin gold foil that can be glued onto the painting.'”,
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, “He also mentioned, ‘I have never received any feedback from the laureates regarding the portraits,’ and ‘It seems like the Nobel Prize candidates are too busy.'”