12 new portraits of Cara Delevingne have been unveiled by Jonathan Yeo, just days before his largest ever show opens at Denmark’s Museum of National History.

The retrospective, titled Jonathan Yeo Portraits, is set to the be the largest selection of work ever shown by the artist, and will include a number of key pieces from his 25-year career. This includes a series of oil-painted tributes to the Paper Towns actress – who he described as “perfect subject and muse” for the show.

Yeo apparently chose Delevingne for her “chameleon” qualities, adding that she was the perfect lead for the social media-focused show. “Just a few years ago everyone thought the camera had killed painting, but we are starting to see it has actually saved it,” he reveals. “Thanks to camera phones, and social media such as Instagram, we are all starting to think like painters.”

The ex-model apparently posed for Yeo six times over the last 15 months, creating 12 portraits with him. Nine of them will be displayed at the exhibition.

“The way we manipulate and read self-portrait images, or 'selfies', in the last five years has far more in common with the activity of the 16th-century portrait artists and audiences than any art movement since the birth of photography,” Yeo adds. “It's no longer just actors and politicians who are expected to deceive us with their appearance, but our circle of real and virtual friends too.”

View a selection of the portraits below.

The exhibition is at The Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark, and is open from March 20 until June 30