What do you give a woman who really does have everything? Well, David Hockney used his iPad to draw a big “ER II 60 years”, Cornelia Parker spat sugar on to an etching plate, Tracey Emin decided on a proper portrait and the architect David Chipperfield presented his plans for the east wing of the Neues Museum in Berlin.
The gifts were from 93 members of the Royal Academy of Arts to the Queen, Buckingham Palace announced on Friday: 97 works on paper to mark the diamond jubilee, including oil works, drawings and photographs by a who’s who of UK artists and architects.
Charles Saumarez Smith, the Royal Academy’s secretary and chief executive, said it was delighted to be giving the portfolio. “We are proud of our royal heritage and feel privileged to be able to mark this historic occasion.” The gifts will go on display to the paying public as part of the Royal Collection next autumn.
There is a precedent for the gifts. The academy presented a portfolio to the Queen on her coronation in 1953, including works by Stanley Spencer and Augustus John; and then again for her silver jubilee in 1977, when work by Elisabeth Frink and Peter Blake was included.
Martin Clayton, the Royal Collection’s senior curator of prints and drawings, said the gift seemed “livelier and more varied” than the previous ones.
“The coronation gift was quite conservative, and even in 1977 there was still a feeling that individual artists were playing safe in their choice of works. Now in 2012 there is no sense of dutiful deference: the artists and architects are simply presenting an example of their very best work to the Queen, and in some cases that work is very personal.”
That said, there is little to scare the corgis. Perhaps mindful of the Queen’s passion for horses, Olwyn Bowey has presented a painting of a pony called Susie, while other works include Grayson Perry’s design for his Kenilworth AM I motorbike, as seen at the British Museum; Michael Manser’s designs for the Queen’s Suite at Heathrow airport; Anthony Eyton’s painting of Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) in Australia; Zaha Hadid’s design for the Olympic aquatics centre; an Anthony Caro chalk drawing of a seated male nude; and a collage from Richard Wilson representing his homage to The Italian Job at Bexhill-on-Sea when he put a teetering coach on top of the De La Warr pavilion.
The works will be displayed in the Queen’s gallery of Buckingham Palace alongside an exhibition of drawings and prints by the 17th-century artist Giovanni Castiglione, regarded as the most innovative and technically brilliant draughtsman of his day.
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