Diary - He's no oil painting

How does one capture an enigma like Sir Martin Sorrell in paint (and we don’t mean by throwing a bucketload over him)? Ask Grey’s Richard Evans, who has done a marvellous job of immortalising the diminutive knight. Evans, who is creating a series of oil paintings of various British luminaries, asked Sorrell if he would like to sit for him and the resulting portrait is pictured above.

Evans managed to break the ice with his subject early on with a gag on the financial downturn, which goes: "Due to the current economic crisis, Greece is cancelling all production of houmous and taramasalata. It’s a double-dip recession."

Sorrell found this highly amusing and subsequently relaxed and became a very biddable sitter, by all accounts. Evans said: "I gave him the painting in the end. In return, he offered to make a donation to charity to my preferred cause. Classy."

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk