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From Cecil Beaton’s coronation portrait via Warhol and Freud to a postcolonial image for the platinum jubilee, artists have shown humanity, politics and fantasy in that famous face
Invited by the Whitechapel Gallery to mount an exhibition from the abundant Government Art Collection, Simon Schama was at first sorely tempted to ‘grab, gorge and glut’. Here he explains how he finally made his more considered choices
International Edition