Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart demands removal of her ‘unflattering’ portrait from national gallery
- The painting by Vincent Namatjira depicted the mining magnate in shades of mottled pink with a double chin
- Rinehart accused the National Gallery of Australia of ‘doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party’ by showing her in an unflattering light
Both mining magnate Gina Rinehart and associates at her company, Hancock Prospecting, have made multiple approaches to the gallery with the demand, the newspaper reported.
The painting is by Vincent Namatjira, a First Nations artist who, according to the National Gallery of Australia has “established himself in the past decade as a celebrated portraitist and a satirical chronicler of Australian identity.”
The portrait of Rinehart is part of a career-survey exhibition titled “Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour.”
It is one of 20 other paintings depicting Rinehart alongside Australian and international figures including Queen Elizabeth, Jimi Hendrix, and the artist himself. All are painted in Namatjira’s distinctive distorted style.
Rinehart, who is worth more than US$22 billion and is in 84th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is depicted in shades of mottled pink with a double chin.