Redone, hidden, burnt: seven famous subjects and the portraits they hated

Vincent Namatjira’s portrait of Gina Rinehart has found no favour with the subject, with the mining tycoon asking the National Gallery of Australia to remove the painting from an exhibition. But Australia’s richest womanis not the first person to take a painting of their likeness to task.

Here we take a look at seven notable examples.

The prime minister’s first official portrait was instantly rejected when it was revealed in 1983, with Malcolm Fraser reportedly “loathing it at first sight”.

Bryan Westwood, who went on to twice win the Archibald prize, captured the prime minister standing with folded arms against a dark background.

Westwood’s agent, Robin Gibson, told the Canberra Times that the late former PM saw the painting as “too casual and domestic”. 

The painting was originally consigned to a National Gallery storage unit but was eventually moved to Old Parliament House. 

Despite being one of the most highly regarded artists of his time, Graham Sutherland produced a portrait of Winston Churchill that was so detested it was secretly burnt by his wife.

The painting was commissioned by the Houses of Parliament to mark the former prime minister’s 80th birthday in November 1954. In it, Churchill was seated and wore a dark suit, displaying his famous bulldog demeanour.

The wartime leader is said to have found his likeness “like a down-and-out who has been picked out of the gutter”. The painting was taken to his home, Chartwell in Kent, where destroyed it in a bonfire.

Prim, seated and with her hands clasped around a handbag, a likeness of the author and feminist Germaine Greer was so unlike her, the sitter reportedly complained of the 1984 portrait painted by Jeffrey Smart.

The sitter and artist were friends but Greer reportedly