A portrait of education campaigner Malala
Yousafzai by Jonathan Yeo is to go on display
for the first time at the National Portrait
Gallery. The 16-year-old was attacked by gunmen
in Pakistan in 2012, following her campaign
for girls to have the right to attend school.
"I suppose the aim of the portrait, any portrait,
is to capture what your impression is of the
subject and be able to intersect the big characters
and particularly people who've spent their
whole lives being in the centre of attention.
Malala just appealed to me because she's an
extraordinarily good person, but also she
didn't go into it to end up as well known
as she is. She represents different things
to world. She was just done at school, covered
in these horrific injuries and I sort of...
The sense of it is this kind of fragile person,
but also this incredibly and quietly intense
wise and calm burning intelligence and the
sort of dichotemy there is really quite extraordinary
and quite magical.
Malala was shot in the head on a school bus
by Taliban gunmen on her way home from school
in October 2012. She was flown to Birmingham
for treatment and now lives in the city.
