Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen: The 'Marquis of Marmite' who wants to paint your house

In a quiet corner of Cirencester, which is in a quiet corner of the Cotswolds, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen sits in a loud room full of clutter, paint and paper. It is here that he does his most important work or, rather, works. Laurence is a painter now and he wants to paint your house. More precisely, he wants to paint your house with some swagger.

Swagger comes naturally to him. When we meet, he is, of course, dressed impeccably. Lashings of blue, that swept hair, collar bursting. He is cheeky, his cadence voluptuous and he wants to gossip. He is everyone’s naughty uncle, the one who sneaks you a glass of wine at dinner and smiles with a twinkle. He is surrounded by easels, half-formed houses with swans and peacocks and architectural flights of fancy. In one, a woman in white frolics in the foreground. Cherubim soar overhead. There is a unicorn.

He’s always had it in him. ‘I was actually very good at drawing. I was winning a lot of competitions. I did my art A Level, as well as Art History, but, alongside the Latin, I suddenly had a massive moment where I didn’t want to carry on,’ Laurence sighs dramatically. He quit his A Levels and went to Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (‘Alleyn’s were absolutely appalled,’ he says of his former school in Dulwich).

Life, however, works in funny ways and dreams of painting professionally were exchanged for interior design and television. Then, work got very quiet for a year: ‘I love a quiet telly year, you know? It means I can get on and do other stuff, so I started painting again.’ Painting with swagger.

That swagger refers to the ‘grand manner’ of British portraiture from the 17th century onwards. William Larkin. John Singer Sargent. A king or a queen or a duke or an earl, surrounded by their best belongings and a small dog. If anyone likes bravado, it’s Laurence. He paints peacocks because they are the hardest thing to paint: ‘There’s an element of showing off. It’s me going: “Look, look how good I am at peacocks”.’

As a younger man, he fell in love with Rex Whistler (‘the art, didn’t know him as a bloke’). When in Paris, where his then girlfriend (now wife) Jackie was working, he would spend hours in the Louvre. ‘I would literally stare at Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa or David’s Coronation of Napoleon, or whatever, for hours and hours and hours and hours, and absolutely soak it up, suck it dry,’ he remembers. ‘I was always surprised that, at the end of the day, there was anything left on the wall.’

In that quiet year, he held an exhibition. Then came the commissions, with people asking him to include their own houses. ‘I really liked the idea of that. It suddenly occurred to me that an amazing part of the artistic tradition of Britain is painting houses, horses, dogs and landscape. The Brits have always been a bit iffy about the portrait.’

The home is a real expression of a person, he says. ‘Very much my starting point with all of the television programmes is trying to get people to express themselves through how they decorate. In the way that you commission a swagger portrait to make you look as gorgeous and moody and powerful and lovely as possible, let’s do that with the house, you know. Let’s get rid of the electricity pylons.’

These paintings are bespoke, commissioned by clients from the Cotswolds and elsewhere who want to create their dream home in oils. Laurence is a conduit that allows them to open up and express themselves. I ask him if he’s an artistic dominatrix, helping us coy Britons release our innermost architectural desires. ‘I’m a dominator, I think, if I remember my Latin correctly,’ he replies instantly. ‘We all really enjoy that reserve. That reserve is incredibly useful, but there are moments to push it, stretch it. I’ve always felt that, everything I do, I’m flirting with people’s pain barrier, like a moth to a flame — but I’m always on the right side of that razor-thin line before it tips over into “Oh my God”.’

People have asked him for everything. An early client was obsessed with Gothic architecture, but his house was on the small side. He wanted the painter to make it three times bigger. Not a problem. ‘I’m like a Harley Street doctor. I will be absolutely impassive when the client says “I’d like a large elephant, with a flamingo perched on its back, arriving in a Nimbus”.’ He admits he’s disappointed that people don’t ask him for weirder things. ‘Who’s going to be surprised to hear me making a statement like that? Ask me to paint your house, but make it look like it’s underwater or on Venus.’

Commissions are handled by Cotswold Contemporary Art in Cirencester, Gloucestershire: Laurence will visit, discuss what you want, work on perspectives, then go away and make a modello. Once the client signs off, he gets to the canvas. Clients are welcome to visit and see how it’s going before, finally, they are presented with the finished work. ‘We might even have a very romantic moment at the framers and snatch a cup of coffee,’ he quips.

The clients are happy. Helen and Russ Waters of Peplow Hall were wandering around Burford, Oxfordshire, when something caught their eye. ‘We walked by the Cotswolds Contemporary Gallery and noticed a collection of rather distinctive, colourful and romantic paintings,’ Mrs Waters recalls. A few phone calls later and Laurence was in Shropshire.

‘He was very knowledgeable about the history and pointed out details original to the hall and details that had been added — and possibly shouldn’t have been. We talked about adding another section of parterres at the back of the hall in the future,’ Mrs Waters says. ‘Laurence loved this idea and said he would include the design on the painting to incentivise us to do it. Russ went rather pale at the thought of the work and expense of completing yet another project, but Laurence kept to his word.’ The finished work now hangs proudly in their home. ‘We asked Laurence to paint a picture of the hall and capture the wildlife that we are blessed with in his flamboyant manner. He did just that and we are truly thrilled with the result,’ she concludes.

As is Greg Horton, who saw Laurence’s paintings in a magazine. ‘They were something different,’ he says. ‘We remembered he was flamboyant, he was likeable and we liked his taste in colours. We had a look and the rest is history.’ Mr Horton is effervescent in his praise of the finished piece: ‘It’s got his personality and it adds some drama to the room. It’s definitely our house, but it’s been romanticised. He borrowed it for a few weeks for an exhibition in Burford — it was grabbing attention and the gallery had to tell people it wasn’t for sale!’

Not everyone is a fan. ‘I turned up with a bunch of my paintings when I went on a cooking show with Prue Leith,’ Laurence admits. ‘In between takes, she turns to me and says: “Of course, I can’t bear your paintings. You know, it looks like something really unpleasant is going to jump out from behind a bush.” I said, “Prue, that’s the whole point. I cannot tell you how much pleasure it gives me that you got that. I mean, I’m sorry that they’re frightening you” — but then I looked at her art and it was quite a lot of jolly sheep.’ He goes on: ‘I’d love to now paint Prue’s house, as you can imagine, with some really quite scary stuff coming up.’

Sometimes, the client will come up with their own symbolism and, sometimes, he’ll add his own to see what he can get away with. ‘A client will say, “Okay, is that actually a hermaphroditic statue painted at the end of the garden?”.’ His smile unfolds like the Cheshire cat. ‘It could be.’ Nothing is off the table. He might suggest things or the client may ask for things, such as a roundabout, to be removed: ‘But perhaps they love the roundabout, but have always wanted a giant clown head on it, with great big light bulbs for eyes. I can do that.’

If it wasn’t obvious already, Laurence isn’t in this for the money or the fame — he doesn’t need either. What he wants is fun and what he is doing is having it, as well as bringing joy to people who love their homes very much. ‘I am the marquis of Marmite,’ he says. ‘I’ve never had a problem with that. I’ve never wanted to be liked by everybody. I’m not trying to be taken significantly as a painter. I’m not trying to set the world on fire. I’m just trying to make nice paintings.’

It was once written that Laurence has more fun than anyone else alive. It’s hard not to agree and even harder not to be swept up in it. The joy and the passion with which he talks about getting his clients to realise their architectural dreams, in paint at least, is matched only by the joy on the canvas.

‘I’m an artistic taxi for hire, you know,’ he says with that wry smile. ‘We could go wherever you want me to go.’

To enquire about a commission, contact Cotswold Contemporary Art in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

This feature originally appeared in the May 7, 2025 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe