Description

the original artwork for this unique potrayal of a year spent with the monarch, recording both her public life and life behind the scenes in 1999, including numerous representations of the Queen engaged in a variety of formal and informal activities, receiving guests at Buckingham Palace or meeting the public on visits both at home and abroad, such as to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Swansea, Liverpool, Bristol, Stoke, Manchester and elsewhere, also South Korea, Ghana and South Africa, individual portraits and events include the Queen Mother celebrating her 99th birthday, the wedding of the Earl and Countess of Wessex, Nelson Mandela, various members of the household staff, the state opening of parliament, horse racing, scenes at Windsor, Sandringham, Buckingham Palace and Balmoral, in addition and outside this body of work are a portrait of the Queen Mother in 1978, and a few drawings recording her lying-in-state in 2002 over 260 scenes, figure groups and portraits variously in oil on paper, pen and ink, charcoal, pencil, watercolour and mixed media, various sizes, 600 x 1470mm. et infra, all signed, all mounted, many framed, 1999

***Michael Noakes (b.1933) trained at the Royal Academy Schools and is one of Britain's leading portrait artists, sitters including not only the Queen, on several occasions, but also Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Ralph Richardson, J.B. Priestley and many others, some of which are in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. He even, uniquely, won a platinum disc for his portrait of Frank Sinatra for an album sleeve. The final result of this project, undertaken in collaboration with the artist's wife, the respected author and art historian, the late Vivien Noakes, was published in 2000 by Ebury Press. Several drawings included in this collection do not appear in the published book..