Artist Michael Armitage will design a new £1 coin which will enter circulation next year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced.

The new design for the reverse or side of the coin will mark its 40th anniversary and it will be revealed later this year.

During a Royal College of Art's (RCA) reception on Tuesday, Mr Sunak announced that Mr Armitage's new design will celebrate the culture, creativity, and heritage and history of the UK in the 21st century.

Mr Armitage said:

Chief executive of the Royal Mint Anne Jessopp said:

Mr Armitage was born in 1984 in Nairobi, Kenya, and lives and works between London and Nairobi. Earlier this year, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, elected him a Royal Academician in the category of painting.

He was chosen by the Chancellor on advice provided by an independent panel with expertise in coin design and art.

The 1983 £1 coin was fully redesigned in 2017, including the introduction of new security features.

David adds:

The design will become the standard circulating £1 coin and will include the current high-security features to protect against counterfeiting, the Treasury said.

To read the complete article, see:
Artist Michael Armitage to design new £1 coin(https://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/20129149.artist-michael-armitage-design-new-1-coin/)

In his paintings Armitage weaves together his experiences in Kenya and current events with contemporary East African art and European art history. With his multi-layered narrative paintings, Armitage questions social norms, religious ideology, politics and cultural clichés.

Armitage was born to a Yorkshireman father and Kikuyu mother, spending his childhood in East Africa before training as an artist in Britain.

He has since described his education at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools as

His work has been influenced by these years of studying Western art history, and particularly by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Francisco Goya, Edouard Manet and Titian, but is grounded in East Africa and inspired by artists such as Jak Katarikawe, Chelenge van Rampelberg and Meek Gichugu.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
A beginner's guide to Michael Armitage(https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/michael-armitage-beginners-guide)