Hatton, Drogba and Zara Phillips are muses for Sport Relief
TX: Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th March 22:35 BBC ONE
Sport Portraits documents a unique fundraising event for Sport Relief.
Three months ago six of Britain’s best loved artists agreed to take on the challenge of producing portraits of today’s sporting heroes - their goal, to raise as much money as possible for Sport Relief when the works of art go under the hammer at auction.
But what happens when great art meets great sport?
This two part documentary follows the journey of six artists as they look beyond the public image of three sporting heroes to capture the personality: godfather of pop art Sir Peter Blake and political caricaturist Gerald Scarfe will take on the face of Ricky Hatton; best selling Scottish artist Jack Vettriano and the A-list celebrities favourite photographer Rankin create works of art of Zara Phillips, whilst Didier Drogba faces wild child of art Stella Vine.
Created by 12 Yard Productions for BBC Arts, Sport Portraits follows the journey of the paintings from the first sitting through to the moment when they are unveiled to the world. The artworks will be auctioned on behalf of Sport Relief later this year.
- Ends -
To purchase limited edition prints visit www.therealartco.com/sportrelief. For general information on Sport Portraits contact:
Penny Sims – p.sims@comicrelief.com / 020 7840 2533 / 07814 932 886
Larissa Abl – l.abl@comicrelief.com / 020 7840 2519
Scott Branch: scott.branch@bbc.co.uk / 020 8225 9900
Notes to Editors
• Sport Relief Weekend runs from March 14th – 16th. For more information, or to sign up for the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile got to www.sportrelief.com.
• To make a donation, call 08457 910 910 calls cost no more than 4p per minute from BT landlines. Minimum call charge 6p. Other operator and mobile rates may vary)
• Since its launch in 2002, almost £50 million has been raised through Sport Relief
• Comic Relief spends the money raised to help vulnerable people living incredibly tough lives both at home in the UK and across the world’s poorest countries.
• Sport Relief is an initiative of Comic Relief, registered with the charity commission no. 326568