In 2015, Hogan was commissioned by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to paint the portrait of Tony Leake as part of a project to make twelve portraits of D-Day veterans. Hogan’s portrait is about the relationships between portraiture, memory, and remembrance. Leake had been a Corporal in the 8th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and had taken part in the mass parachute drop behind German lines and explosive operations on a river in France. She depicts him at home in Sussex in the South of England, leaning back in his green armchair with his sturdy hands crossed in his lap, his suit jacket decorated with a row of five medals and the red beret clearly indicating his regiment. His alert, light-green eyes stare into the distance, perhaps remembering the moment when he and colleagues were stranded for five days before relief came from the Highland Regiment.

Extract from Painting Portraits, Recording Lives, Sarah Victoria Turner, Eileen Hogan; Personal Geographies published by Yale University Press 2019

Robert Antony ‘Tony’ Leake (study)
oil, wax, and charcoal on panel, 65 × 55 cm
2015