Not everyone knows that Prince Charles is a great artist and the profits of his artworks all go to his foundation. Despite being trained by the best British artists, the 71-year-old royal still considers himself amateur. However, with the enormous sales of his paintings, the Prince of Wales is believed to be one of the United Kingdom's best-selling living artists.
The heir to the throne started painting in the 1970s. He was inspired by his art master, Robert Waddell, at Gordonstoun School in Scotland, and taught by some of Britain's most exceptional artists, like John Napper, John Ward, Hugh Casson, Edward Seago, and Derek Hill, The Telegraph noted.
Prince Charles only uses watercolor and paints on the outdoors. He loves to draw outdoor scenes, covering the streams, mountains, and the surrounding areas of Balmoral.
His first exhibit happened in 1997 in Windsor Castle and displayed alongside the paintings of Queen Victoria, an avid watercolorist herself, and Prince Philip, a known painter, and designer. He might have inherited his talent from his father, whose sketches helped designed the stained-glass windows of Windsor Castle's Private Chapel.
After his first exhibit, the future king continued painting, showing his works that became famous not just in the U.K. but also abroad. Despite calling himself an "enthusiastic amateur," he managed to earn about £2 million from the sales of his watercolor paintings from 1997 to 2016. Hence, he was dubbed as one of the country's best-selling living artists.
As someone who's dedicated to his charity works, Prince Charles donated all the sales to The Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund. He didn't use the money for himself.
"It would have been wonderful to grow up among that art," fellow artist Catherine Goodman, with whom he founded the Royal Drawing School in 2000, said. "His lifelong passion stems from there."
According to Insider, aside from being displayed in several art exhibitions and at charity events, his works were also featured on U.K. stamps and a Swiss ski pass. It was even shown by the Royal Collection Trust and for his 70th birthday, he celebrated with a huge exhibition at Buckingham Palace.
Prince Charles showed a lot of his watercolor artworks at a charity reception for International Nursing and Nurses Day. At the event, he praised the forgotten hard work of the nurses and emphasized what they did by treating the victims of the Grenfell Fire, where 71 people died when the residential building caught fire.
