How can you tell that a painting is the work of a great artist? In Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, art restorer Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) is enlisted in a scheme to forge a series of portraits by Julian Sklar, a renowned painter of the pre – Young British Artists generation. The first and second series of the “Christophers” (named for their young subject) sell for millions, but Sklar abandoned the project in the 1990s. A third, unfinished batch of Christophers languishes in his attic, awaiting a buyer – if Lori can pass them off as the master’s work.
As Lori secures a position as Julian’s assistant, their conversations, and her assignment, touch on questions of authenticity, originality, authorship, and genius. These were also questions for Antonia Lowe, production designer of The Christophers, and Barnaby Gorton, a scenic painter who has contributed in-world portraits for films including the Harry Potter series. Like Lori, they were tasked with creating paintings that could plausibly be work in the style of a major talent: both eight evocative and unfinished Christophers, and (this and the interview that follows constitutes a spoiler) their eight finished versions, completed by Lori after Julian’s death, which are wild and extravagant, and, though attributed to Julian, are considered a bold departure from his style. Lowe and Gorton refer to Julian’s unfinished Christophers as “Stage One” and Lori’s continuations as “Stage Two” throughout our conversation.
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LWLies: What was the brief for the Christophers paintings?
Antonia Lowe: The initial point was thinking about it as a whole. The studio and the artwork had to tie in together, so [we were] looking at artists who felt authentic to the time period. People like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon [are] probably the most obvious but clearest reference points as London artists of the time when Julian Sklar would have been working. [We] took references from their studios, but also some of the processes that go into their painting style, in putting mood boards together.
One main point was trying to find an artist early on – we had very little prep time, and actually very little shoot time. Steven’s incredibly quick. I think we had five weeks’ full prep time for a three-week shoot, and the paintings would be seen right at the beginning of the shoot. We needed to ensure that we were happy with the person stylistically, but also that they were able to work within film timetables.
We had chats in the beginning about colour palettes and tones, and mood boards were shared with Barnaby so he got a feel of who Julian Sklar was in the whole. We tried to feed you as much of the world as possible.
Were Soderbergh or [screenwriter Ed] Solomon hands-on? Were you showing them sketches?
BG: In the first stage, there was no hands-on. It was, “We need these in various stages [of completion].” We did them in a week. That’s great, when you’re working at speed, because you don’t get caught up in the detail. We did 16 paintings, so Steven could choose the eight, and the extras went on to become the second stage paintings. Two of each image, because we were given eight Polaroids [of young Christopher, which are affixed to the Stage One canvases in the film].
AL: Stylistically, the Polaroids set the tone. That casting process had to happen quite quickly, to get the actor who was going to be our young Christopher. And [there were] discussions with Barnaby, but also with Steven, thinking about the framing and how these Polaroids were lit. The main point was making sure that it felt like Christopher, as a subject, was at the front and center – not to have any detail in the background, for it not to be like a [David] Hockney, where you’ve got the person within their space, or within a space. To have that void, so that the full focus is on the face and the expression, and everything else is blurred out, giving it this sense of importance, so every detail is looked at and considered.
Barnaby, the way that you translated those Polaroids into your initial sketches and paintings was great because it was quite immediate, you went for it in a reactive way.
BG: Some had a white background, some had a dark background – I just wanted to give [Soderbergh] a choice. So they were worked up, but they were, at the most, four hours each; if he hadn’t liked them, I could have overpainted and started again.
Second stage there was a lot more input in how mad it got. The second stage was [initially] much more figurative, and more how I would see he would have completed [the paintings] at that time. And then Steven went, No, no, no, we want a lot more paint.
AL: I think he said “Wilder.” And we were like, “Oh, OK.”
BG: Then we had them all lined up and went through each painting. Which one do you want paint thrown on? Which one do you want slashed? Let’s have a big mark here. It was great to then go back and not be afraid of slashing and burning and all these other things. That was quite freeing. I enjoyed that a lot.
AL: Steven’s got it so much in his head, in terms of the blocking. He knew what he wanted in terms of the emotion and the movement that Ian [McKellan] would have to give [when desecrating one of his unfinished Christophers, thus inspiring Lori’s continuations]. So [Stage Two] was slightly reverse-engineered: We had to come up with a finished piece based on the movements he wanted from the characters. He wasn’t too prescriptive in terms of exactly what they looked like, as long as he had the ability to manipulate the movements in the way that he wanted, and to give Ian McKellan the space to make it funny, expressive, all of those things that it is onscreen.