Stanley Chow, the famed Mancunian illustrator, caught Covid in October 2020 and since then has struggled with a condition that leaves him worried about going to social events
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Stanley Chow is a well-known artist and illustrator
Stanley Chow is a well-known artist and illustrator (Image: Manchester Evening News)
Stanley Chow meets a lot of new people thanks to his work. But, in the last few years, that has presented the internationally-renowned illustrator with a rare and embarrassing problem.
The 50-year-old Mancunian, best known for his distinctive portraits of footballers and celebrities, caught Covid in October 2020 - suffering only relatively mild cold and flu-like symptoms at the time. But in the months that followed, as people began to emerge from lockdown, he started to notice that, after meeting someone new, their face would be essentially wiped from his memory.
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In May 2023, a study from Dartmouth College in the US linked a Covid-19 infection to ‘face blindness’ - or prosopagnosia as it’s also known. And that has left Stanley questioning whether the coronavirus has caused him to suffer from that same condition.
“Since Covid it became a thing I started noticing loads,” he says. “And even still now. Imagine if I’ve never met someone, been introduced to them, go to dinner, the pub, spend all evening with them, and then a week later I’ll see that person again - I just wouldn’t recognise them.
Stanley noticed he was suffering from 'face blindness' in the months after he caught Covid
Stanley noticed he was suffering from 'face blindness' in the months after he caught Covid
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
“You see a face but it’s like that face doesn’t compute.
“And it’s people who I’ve met during or post Covid. If I’ve met someone before Covid, they are still in my memory bank. But if I’d met them during that Covid time, it’d be really difficult for me to recognise them again.”
Stanley goes on to describe how he often relies on his wife Rebecca or his friends to tell him if he’s met a person before when he’s out socially.
“Because of what I do, I generally meet a lot of new people,” he says. “Sometimes I have no idea if I’ve met them before. It’s quite frustrating.”
Stanley, a big Manchester United fan, recalls a time he was invited to an event at the Class of ‘92-owned Hotel Football at Old Trafford, where he was seated with a ‘bunch of random people’. Soon after that he got a text.
“They were like, ‘You’ve just blanked my mate’,” Stanley says. “We were sat on the same table and I didn’t know I’d met him before.
A Stanley Chow self-portrait
A Stanley Chow self-portrait(Image: Stanley Chow)
“There were actually two people that I’d met before and I just completely didn’t realise. That’s quite embarrassing really. You feel really bad, mortified, to discover that.”
Stanley goes on to say how the condition causes him anxiety - to the point where now, before going to a public event, he needs to do preparation on social media first.
“If I’m going out to a public place I need to find out beforehand as many people as possible who are going to be there to see if I can match their faces up to Facebook or Instagram and prepare so I don’t embarrass myself,” he says. “I get the anxiety - am I going to bump into someone I’ve met and not recognise them?
“It knocks your confidence a bit. In terms of going out socially, I probably don’t go to as many social events as I would have done. That might be down to post-lockdown behaviour anyway. But I’m less inclined to go to social events just because I don’t want to be bumping into people I’ve met before and I’ve completely forgotten who they are.
“You know, I’m shaking hands and they’re like, ‘All right Stan, how are you doing?’ And I’m in my head thinking, ‘Have we met before?’ I get anxiety because of that.”
Stanley’s career really took off in 2007 when his art was spotted by musicians Meg and Jack White from the band The White Stripes. Months later he was commissioned to create artwork for their album Icky Thump, and he has also had work published in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
Stanley's career took off after his work was spotted by The White Stripes
Stanley's career took off after his work was spotted by The White Stripes
Given that Stanley is perhaps best known as an illustrator of people’s faces, we ask if his condition has affected his work.
“Ironically, it hasn’t really,” he replies. “But I’ll tell you something that has happened - and maybe it’s because the illustration I’ve done isn't that good - but there are some illustrations I’ve done where I actually don’t recognise them.
“I’ll look back at my older work and I’ll be like, ‘I don’t even know who that is anymore’. It’ll be a random footballer or something like that. And I’ll be thinking, ‘Who is that footballer’? Not because I’ve forgotten his name, it's just stopped looking like the person I illustrated.
“And then I’ll have to ask a mate, ‘Does this actually still look like the person it’s meant to?’ And it does.
“But that’s mad. Because at the time it did look like the person.”
Hello Europe by Stanley Chow
Hello Europe by Stanley Chow(Image: Stanley Chow)
Stanley says that, although he used to struggle with people’s names previously, ‘face blindness’ hadn’t been an issue until after he got Covid.
“I don’t know if it is definitely linked to Covid,” he says. “It could be a case of early on-set dementia, do you know what I mean? Or basically it could be that my brain is generally too full.
“It could be any of these factors. But Covid was when it became apparent. Is it a coincidence or is it linked to Covid? I have always questioned that.”
The Dartmouth study was the first to report prosopagnosia, or face blindness, following symptoms consistent with Covid-19. The researchers worked with Annie, a 28-year-old customer service representative who was also, curiously, a part-time portrait artist.
She was diagnosed with Covid in March 2020 and suffered a symptom relapse two months later. Shortly after that, Annie noticed difficulty with face recognition and navigation.
Her case was so severe that she could not even recognise the faces of her own family. Annie told researchers of an occasion when she was at a restaurant meeting her relatives for the first time after having Covid and she failed to recognise them.
Judy Garland by Stanley Chow
Judy Garland by Stanley Chow(Image: Stanley Chow)
When she walked past them for a second time, her father called out to her. “It was as if my dad’s voice came out of a stranger’s face,” says Annie, who now relies on voices to recognise people she knows.
The research team then obtained data from individuals who had long Covid and those who said they had fully recovered from the infection - to determine if others had experienced perception, recognition and navigational problems.
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“Most respondents with long Covid reported that their cognitive and perceptual abilities had decreased since they had Covid, which was not surprising, but what was really fascinating was how many respondents reported deficits,” says lead study author Marie-Luise Kieseler. “It was not just a small concentration of really impaired cases but a broad majority of people in the long Covid group reported noticeable difficulties doing things that they were able to do before contracting Covid-19 without any problems.”
Following the 2023 study, which was published in the scientific journal Cortex, the research team said they hoped to do more research in the area - but no other papers have been published on the issue since.