A renowned sculptor has said he is “thrilled” to have been chosen to create a statue of Queen Elizabeth II for a new national memorial, saying he would like it to be an “object of delight for people”.
Martin Jennings, who has also portrayed the Queen Mother and King Charles in past works, told Sky News he was “delighted” when he received the call saying he’d been invited to join the project.
“I mean, I was absolutely thrilled,” he said.
“It’s a terrific commission to be asked to do and to be quite honest, I can’t quite remember what the rest of the phone call was all about – I was so delighted to have been appointed.”
Mr Jennings will now set about creating the statue of the late Queen in the planned national memorial in London called Queen Elizabeth II Place.
It will provide the public with a permanent space to commemorate the country’s longest-reigning monarch, who died in 2022.
He said that while the design for the statue is yet to be decided, he would like for it to have a sense of “stillness”, which reflects the “dignity” and “grace” of her reign.
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“I would like it to be an object of delight for people,” he said.
“I don’t want it to be too grave. It needs to have panache, it needs to have grandeur to suit its site, it needs to have a kind of delight to it.
“But she was so constant that the dignity, the restraint and the grace that we associate with her are things that at the moment are at the forefront of my mind.”
Architect Lord Norman Foster, known for designing The Gherkin, has won the bid to design the memorial, which will be located at Marlborough Gate in St James’s Park, close to Buckingham Palace.
It will also feature a new Prince Philip Gate on the other side of the park on Birdcage Walk with a statue of Philip, as well as a “family of gardens”, meandering paths and a new translucent, glass unity bridge.
A panel of committee members will work with the team on the final design, which is expected to be unveiled in 2026 – the late Queen’s 100th birthday year.
Mr Jennings told Sky News he expects there will be “considerable interest” from the Royal Family, with the King “keen that his mother should be represented appropriately”.
“I hope it will be something that both they and the general public are proud of,” he said.
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Mr Jennings said that at this early stage in this process, he intends to “do a lot of listening” when it comes to the design, with decisions including the stage of her life he will depict not yet taken.
He said he expects that, like his previous works, the original version of the statue will be produced in clay, and then casted in bronze, but stressed “I don’t want to pin it down at this stage”.
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Mr Jennings has also created a bust of the Queen Mother, which is in St Paul’s Cathedral, and the first crowned coinage portrait of the King.
The 68-year-old has also crafted statues of George Orwell outside BBC Broadcasting House, Philip Larkin in Hull, Mary Seacole in London’s St Thomas’ Hospital and the Women Of Steel in Sheffield.
The Queen Elizabeth II memorial project has a provisional construction budget of between £23m and £46m excluding VAT.
