Susanna Blunt is a
Canadian portrait
artist who designed the most recent portrait of
Queen Elizabeth II on the current Canadian
coinage, which began in 2003. She was born in
Harbin, China, the daughter of an
English banker. Blunt started her studies at the
Banff School of Fine Arts as a young teenager. After finishing high school in 1958 at
Queen Margaret's School she had a year of private lessons in
Victoria, British Columbia. She moved to
London, England and did four years of art school, then won a scholarship to the
Royal Academy for another four years, during which she won several awards and a silver medal.The following year she worked with
Yoko Ono. She became known for her
trompe l'oeil paintings and designed the
optical illusion room for the
Science World museum in Vancouver in 1988.Blunt created the image from a photograph of the Queen. She won the competition and her portrait of the Queen has been used on Canadian coins and currency in Great Britain and the Commonwealth from 2003 - 2014