Artists draw Jubilee inspiration

Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Anish Kapoor and Grayson Perry are among the artists who have contributed to the Royal Academy of Arts’s gift to the Queen of 97 works on paper by its Royal Academicians.

Hockney’s contribution is a colourful image of the Queen’s initials from her cypher ‘EIIR’ created on a iPad, Emin submitted a monoprint portrait of the monarch titled HRH Royal Britannia, while Perry’s present was designs for his motorbike.

The gifts have been added to the Royal Collection and will go on display at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace next autumn.

The portfolio includes prints, drawings, photographs and works in oil and watercolour.

Martin Clayton, senior curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, said: “The Royal Academy’s Diamond Jubilee gift is a vivid cross-section of the best of contemporary British art. It seems livelier and more varied than the Academy’s equivalent gifts for the Queen’s Coronation and Silver Jubilee; 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.”