Queen Elizabeth II has dished out her New Year honours gongs, which recognise the “achievements of a wide range of extraordinary people across the UK”, trumpets an official statement (though very few are reserved for the arts). Notable art-related recipients include nonetheless Phyllida Barlow who is made a commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE). She has long been respected among British artists, having taught at London’s Slade School of Art for more than 40 years, where her students included Rachel Whiteread, Douglas Gordon and Tacita Dean (Barlow’s awesome dock installation at Tate Britain last year was a talking point).
The colourful art historian Sir Roy Strong, the former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, became a Companion of Honour, while the London-based philanthropist and collector Anita Zabludowicz, a museum and art fair stalwart, was made an officer of the order of the British Empire (OBE).
The following luminaries also received OBEs: Godfrey Worsdale, the director of the Henry Moore Foundation in Perry Green; Pim Baxter, the deputy director of the National Portrait Gallery in London; Gerard McQuillan, former senior advisor to Arts Council England; and Irene Helen McAra-McWilliam, the head of the School of Design at the Glasgow School of Art.
Claire Doherty, the founding director of the public art organisation Situations, bagged an MBE (member of the order of the British Empire), as did Cathy Costain, the head of arts, Egypt, British Council, "for services to UK-Egyptian cultural relations in the area of arts" (a highly significant role in today's fraught climate).