In a sea of selfies, why not spring for something far more enduring? New York–based artist Claudia Munro Kerr spent her formative years between Scotland and Madrid, where she lived a stone’s throw from the Prado Museum and quickly fell for the soulful work of Diego Velázquez that would influence her path.
Munro Kerr went on to earn her degree in art history from the University of Bristol in England, before continuing to study painting in London, New York, and Paris. Though she is a self-described “plein air painter at heart,” her talents as a portraitist are hard to ignore, and she’s in high demand by the great and the good on both sides of the Atlantic. She recently completed a monumental family portrait commissioned by the Earl and Countess of Leicester, and both Uma Thurman and Jill Kargman have come calling. You might have spotted her likeness of Queen Elizabeth II in the British Consulate in New York, though it is now the property of the Prince of Wales. If you’d like to join such esteemed company, Munro Kerr has agreed to bump Robb Report readers to the top of her list of commissions.
The artist says she is captivated by “all things that move” and “the gesture of nature and how to harness it,” so she’s just as likely to be found painting in a field or on a beach as she is documenting pets and people. She favors live sittings for that reason but has also completed posthumous portraits of Slim Keith and Mrs. Mae Caldwell Manwaring Plant, who famously had her husband trade their Fifth Avenue mansion (now Cartier’s New York flagship) for a double strand of Cartier natural pearls. The painting now hangs in the store.