Since the summer of 2025, the artist has repeatedly met with the former chancellor and painted her in a specially set-up studio in Berlin, as reported by the weekly newspaper “Zeit,” which exclusively accompanied the process. Merkel told “Zeit” that Queyras had informally applied to her in 2022, but only in June 2025, after a first meeting, did she decide on the painter. Asked how it feels to soon move into the ancestral gallery of the Chancellery as a portrait, Merkel said: “It’s strange when you slowly become history.” Yet she tries to take it with equanimity: “Then I’ll just hang there.”
The portrait is to be unveiled on June 30 and will be exhibited at the Bode Museum in Berlin from July 1 to October 4, as the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation announced. Afterwards, it is to take its place in the Chancellery.
Source: Stadt München
