Today Katherine Johnson passed away at the great age of 101. She was a brilliant mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent US crewed spaceflights. She played a key role in sending Apollo 11 to the moon and back.

In her early career she was called a ‘computer’, and she was the inspiration for the recent feature film Hidden Figures — which I highly recommend. he has such an incredible face to paint — a far away but questioning look at the same time. This portrait is based on the beautiful Vanity Fair portrait shot by Annie Leibovitz.