LONDON – The National Portrait Gallery has commissioned a major new portrait of designer Sir Jonathan Ive by the photographer Andreas Gursky, supported by Scott Collins in partnership with Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Jonathan Ive by Andreas Gursky was photographed in March 2019. It is now on public display at the National Portrait Gallery having been commissioned for its permanent collection. The portrait is as much about Jonathan Ive as it is about Apple, the world’s largest technology company, and its seminal new headquarters at Apple Park, California. As one of a few portraits by Andreas Gursky and the only portrait commission he has undertaken for a public museum, it reflects the long-standing professional admiration between them.

Jony Ive is one of the leading figures in contemporary design. As Apple’s Chief Design Officer, he is responsible for design, including the look and feel of hardware, user interface, packaging and major architectural projects. Described by founder Steve Jobs as “his creative partner” Ive joined Apple in 1992. From his early cutting-edge designs for the iMac and iPhone to realizing the vision of Apple Park in 2017, his role has been central to Apple’s progressive ambition and success.

Holding over 5,000 patents, Ive has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and both Cambridge and Oxford Universities. In 2013 Sir Ive was knighted for his services to design and enterprise, and in 2017 he was appointed Chancellor of London’s Royal College of Art.

Internationally renowned photographer Andreas Gursky has exhibited in biennales and solo shows across the world for over 30 years. He has been the focus of major touring exhibitions including “Retrospektive 1984 – 2007,” “Andreas Gursky: Works 1980 – 2008” and his latest retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2018 commended him as one of the most significant photographers of our time.

Born in 1955 in Leipzig, Germany, since the mid-1980s Gursky has focused intently on the motif of the landscape and the human existence within it. The fundamental constant throughout his work is the relationship between individual and mass entity as well as between the single figure and ornamentation. With respect to the present, he further includes in his works iconic images that mirror the complex social developments of globalization, against the background of the flood of information, current mass phenomena and visionary architectural concepts.