Domingo Zapata’s ’11 Minutes’ (Getty Images)
Now that Domingo Zapata has painted Hollywood beauties such as Sofia Vergara and Eva Longoria, who’s next?
“I would like to work with the Queen of England. Naked,” laughed Zapata at the opening of his new collection “11 Minutes” in his SoHo pop-up gallery. “Maybe if I see her somewhere when I’m in London, I’ll go up to her and go, ‘Your highness, do you mind if we go to a room for a second and I take a picture?’”
Before you shout, ‘Off with his head’, Zapata explained to Page Six, “Every major painter in history has painted a queen. I cannot die without doing that. If at any time she wants to pose nude for me I’m ready to paint her.”
As for the future queen, Kate Middleton, he quipped “[only] when she becomes queen but right now I want to paint the Queen of England.”
Last night, the painter and his guests celebrated his latest eight-piece series inspired by the synonymous Paulo Coelho novel about a Brazilian prostitute. He explained about his muse, “The prostitute is saying by the time they undress, get ready, have a cigarette and then have sex it only takes 11 minutes. That caught my eye – 11 minutes is so important because of the power, passion and love.”
As previously reported, the Art Basel darling recently sold several paintings valued at about $100,000 to Sasha Berg, the owner of Manhattan’s Garlic Pizza and donated his earnings to the Bowery Mission in the form of free pizza. On his pizza largesse, Zapata, 38, told us, “A lot of families are homeless nowadays. For a father to be able to offer pizza night to kids again — it’s important to bring that. We have two years of free pizza night for 300 people.”
Jessica White, Eric Lewis, Jonathan Cheban and Frederique Van der Wal also attended the Cipriani Downtown hosted event. Zapata’s collection is open now through April 5 at 376 West Broadway.