Turner chosen as face of the first plastic £20 note
THE first plastic £20 note will feature a self-portrait of the artist JMW Turner.
He was chosen by a poll after the Bank of England opened voting to the public for the first time.
Turner’s self-portrait will be alongside one of his best-known paintings, The Fighting Temeraire, which shows a battleship being towed on its way to be broken up.
The note – released in 2020 – also has Turner’s signature from his will and his quote: ‘Life is therefore colour.’ Bank of England Governor Mark Carney launched the nomination process last year, with a shortlist including Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock and Beatrix Potter.
There were almost 30,000 votes and Turner was chosen to replace economist Adam Smith as the face of the £20 note. Plastic £5 notes will enter circulation later this year, while a plastic £10 – featuring novelist Jane Austen – will be released in 2017.
‘Turner is perhaps the single most influential British artist of all time,’ Mr Carney said yesterday. ‘His work was transformative, bridging the classical and modern worlds.’
Artist Tracey Emin said: ‘It’s so amazing that an artist has been chosen for the £20 note and an artist who was a wild maverick. It’s wonderful that Britain’s creative side is being honoured in this way.’
Turner, who died in 1851, produced about 2,000 watercolours and more than 550 oil paintings in his career.
Voting was opened to the public following an outcry over the lack of female faces – other than the Queen – on banknotes, after Sir Winston Churchill was chosen to replace Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note.