British artists gift works to Queen for Diamond Jubilee

Queen Elizabeth has received a trove of contemporary art created by some of the U.K.'s most prominent artists to mark her  Diamond Jubilee year.

Executives of Britain's Royal Academy of Arts have presented the Queen with a portfolio of 97 works by the group's members, including top artists David Hockney, Anish Kapoor and Tracey Emin.

Academy president and artist Christopher Le Brun, who contributed a landscape painting, described the gift as "a unique portfolio of works by current Royal Academicians."

The pieces offered include a spare, monoprint portrait of the long-serving monarch by Emin and one of Hockney's iPad creations that features the monarch's initials and acknowledgement of her 60-year reign.

The collection of modern artworks — comprising prints, drawings, photos, oil paintings, watercolours and mixed media pieces — will be put on display in the Queen's gallery at Buckingham Palace from Nov. 2013 to March 2014.

The works are "a vivid cross-section of the best of contemporary British art," according to Martin Clayton, senior curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust.

Unlike more conservative, safer artworks the academy previously presented to the Queen for her coronation and for her Silver Jubilee, in this latest gift "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," he said, singling out in particular the works by Emin, Hockney and Joe Tilson.

The Queen is the patron of the Royal Academy of Arts, which was founded by King George III in the 18th century.