Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2019: Rachel Whiteread and Simon Russell Beale lead arts honours

Damehood: Rachel Whiteread, with her work Detached at Gagosian in 2013, has received an honour
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Turner Prize-winning artist Rachel Whiteread and acclaimed theatre actor Simon Russell Beale have been recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Whiteread, who was the first woman to win the Turner Prize, is made a dame for services to art, while Russell Beale, one of the most celebrated stage stars of his generation, has been knighted for services to drama.

One of Whiteread’s most famous works was a concrete cast of a house in East London. It led to her Turner Prize win in 1993, but became the subject of controversy and was eventually demolished by the local council in January the following year.

In 2000, Whiteread’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial was unveiled in Vienna, a cast of a library with all of the book spines facing inwards. She was commissioned to create the Fourth Plinth sculpture in Trafalgar Square in 2001, and created a resin sculpture of the empty plinth itself.

A recent major retrospective at Tate Britain received a five star review from Evening Standard critic Matthew Collings. He wrote: “She shows us how we love the ordinary but don’t know we do. And homely surfaces remain as archetypes in our minds but we rarely see those exact surfaces any more. We read what we do see as if it were those old lost things.”

Russell Beale, who is currently starring in the West End transfer of The Lehman Trilogy after a hit run at the National Theatre and on Broadway, has received acclaim since winning the Ian Charleson Award in 1990.

Simon Russell Beale at the Evening Standard Film Awards in 2018, after winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Death of Stalin
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He began his career at the Royal Shakespeare Company, with notable performances in The Seagull, Troilus and Cressida and Edward II, and has starred in National Theatre productions frequently since 1995.

Russell Beale is a four-time Evening Standard Theatre Award winner, picking up best actor for his performances in Hamlet (2000), Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night (2002), The Philanthropist (2005) and Collaborators (2012).

He has also won two Bafta awards for his television work, including for his performance as Falstaff in BBC’s The Hollow Crown in 2013, and two Olivier awards for stage work.

Other notable honours include a CBE for recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman and an OBE for actress Cush Jumbo, who will play Hamlet at the Young Vic next year.

The Queen's Birthday Honours 2019 - In pictures

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