''The Queen'' is a 1997 portrait by the English painter

Justin Mortimer Justin Mortimer (born 1970) is an English painter, recognized for his paintings of well known high society including Harold Pinter, Sir Steve Redgrave and Queen Elizabeth II. He won the National Gallery's BP Portrait Award in 1991. Early life ...

of Queen Elizabeth II. The portrait was commissioned by the

Royal Society of the Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

to mark their 50th anniversary of association with the Queen, and hangs in their headquarters. It was officially unveiled in May 1998. The portrait was initially displayed to the public for five days in January 1998 at the

Business Design Centre The Business Design Centre is a Grade II listed building located between Upper Street and Liverpool Road in the district of Islington in London, England. It was opened in 1862, originally named the Agricultural Hall and from 1884 the Royal Ag ...

in Islington, north London. The ''Wall Street Journal'' wrote that Mortimer's portrait depicts Elizabeth "...set against an acidic yellow background with her head floating away from her body". The yellow background references the Yellow Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace where Elizabeth sits for portraits, and where she posed for Mortimer. The isolated head was not intended by Mortimer to be a comment of the British royal family's historical use of decapitation as punishment, with Mortimer feeling that Elizabeth was "from another era...I don't have anything in common with her apart from being English". Mortimer said in painting the portrait he "wanted to get away from the royal aspect and paint a picture of a person rather than the Queen...It means people can focus more on the abstract quality of the painting and get away from the normal paintings of royalty, where everything is intact and, dare I say it, sycophantic." The curator of the 2012 National Portrait Gallery exhibition ''The Queen: Art and Image'', Paul Moorhouse, said that Mortimer's portrait was "...fitting with the atmosphere at the time...people were asking, 'What is she for? What does she represent?'" The portrait was seen in the public dissatisfaction that surrounded the monarchy in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. In an interview with the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', Mortimer said that Elizabeth "...recognizes that it is part of her role as monarch to be represented by all different kinds of portraitists...She went along with it knowing that she would get a very unconventional result." Elizabeth subsequently commissioned a portrait of the Lord Chamberlain from Mortimer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Queen, The 1997 paintings Portraits of Elizabeth II Portraits by English artists Paintings in London Royal Society of Arts 20th-century portraits