Focus on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – An 80th Birthday Portrait and explore the Critical reception.
The portrait was voted the second-most-favoured portrait of the Queen by the British public. It has been critically derided, being described by Harry Wallop in The Telegraph as depicting the Queen as a "gurning granny". Clive Aslet, writing for the same publication, described the painting as representing a "nadir" of portraiture of the Queen, saying it showed her "grinning like the monkey on top of a barrel organ". Jonathan Jones of The Guardian said, "The press conference was a sickening display of fawning over Harris and his fatuous painting, and something in me snapped. I asked him if he seriously believed that his portrait was a good work of art [...] Seeing him unveil his royal portrait felt like attending some grotesquely bland cultural rite conducted by a dystopian version of Britain in which the BBC and monarchy united to promote the inanities of Rolf Art."
Jonathan Jones Clive Aslet The Guardian BBC