"The First Person to Know About the Han River Nobel Prize Winner... The Secret of the Golden Portrait"

Portrait Artist of Nobel Laureate Niklas Elmehed
Discovered Just Before Winner Announcement Due to Confidentiality Policy

As news broke that Han Kang (54), the first Korean to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, had won, attention was also drawn to the portrait that appeared alongside the announcement.

Portrait of Korean novelist Han Kang painted by Niklas Elmehed, the Nobel Prize-winning portrait artist. Han Kang received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024.
[Image source=Nobel Foundation]

According to the author's website and various foreign media on the 12th, the artist who painted the winner's portrait is Swedish painter Niklas Elmehed. Since 2012, Elmehed has been responsible for painting the portraits of Nobel laureates. Because time is needed to paint the portrait before the official announcement, Elmehed is one of the few people who know the Nobel laureates in advance. He said, "Unfortunately, due to the Nobel Committee's confidentiality policy, I cannot disclose the exact time," but added, "I tend to paint quite quickly, and a portrait can be completed within a few hours." He also mentioned, "There were times when I had to finish a painting in about 30 minutes," which suggests that even the portrait artist receives the list almost immediately before the Nobel announcement.

The Nobel Committee selects laureates annually in the fields of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Economics, and Peace. Many laureates have focused more on research than public activities, so high-resolution facial photos are rarely released. Even when some photos are made public, they are often outdated, making it difficult for the media to use them. Niklas Elmehed, who was the art director for media at the Nobel Committee in 2012, thought it was inappropriate to upload low-resolution photos of laureates on the official Nobel website and decided to replace photos with paintings instead. The portraits he created received a positive response, and since 2014, he has served as the official portrait artist for the Nobel Prize.

Niklas Elmehed, portrait artist of Nobel Prize laureates. [Image source: Screenshot from Niklas Elmehed's official website]

Looking at the portraits he painted, it is noticeable that the laureates' faces are depicted in golden hues. Initially, Elmehed painted the portraits using a mix of blue and yellow, but from 2017, when the official color for Nobel laureate announcements was set to gold, he began coloring the portraits by applying real gold leaf with a special adhesive. Elmehed said, "At first, I emphasized the portraits with black outlines and blue and yellow shading," adding, "In 2017, we decided to make gold the main color, and after trying various types of gold paint, I became fascinated with applying gold leaf."