This picture arises from The Daily Telegraph magazine’s commission in 1993 for Ray
Richardson to produce a series of oils and drawings of The World Heavyweight Champion
Lennox Lewis (b.1965) . The series was subsequently offered and accepted by The National
Portrait Gallery.
Richardson was an obvious choice of artist as although best known for his pictures of bull-
terriers, boxing has always featured prominently in his work.
Richardson was a contemporary of Damien Hirst’s at Goldsmiths but unlike many of his
fellow YBA artists has always been a realist painter. His reputation as one of the leading
artists within that tradition has recently been confirmed by his inclusion in the recent
exhibition Reality ,at the Sainsbury Centre in 2015,where his painting is placed within the
context of Sickert, Spencer, Bacon and Freud.