UAL community recognised in Queen's Birthday Honours 2022

Congratulations to all alumni as well as present and former partners and staff at UAL who have been commended for their contributions to the arts in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours this year.

Join us in celebrating the full list of honorees:

Sir Quentin Blake, CH

Chelsea College of Art & Design alum Sir Quentin Blake has received a Companion of Honour for services to illustration. Blake is best known for his Roald Dahl illustrations as well as his work for The Spectator and Punch magazine, John Yeoman, Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen and many others. The curator, tutor and children’s book illustrator has previously been awarded a host of other awards including the recent Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration in 2022 and other recognitions stretching back all the way to 1988 when he received his OBE for services to Children’s Literature.

Sir Isaac Julien, K.B.

CSM alum Sir Isaac Julien has received a Knights Bachelor for his services to diversity and inclusion in art. Prior to this acknowledgement, the London-born filmmaker and installation artist has received a host of other prizes and acknowledgements within and outside the UK, including a nomination for the Turner Prize in 2001, the Semaine de la Critique Prize at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunstfilm Biennale in Cologne, just to name a few. From 2014 to 2016, he held the post of Chair of Global Art at UAL.

Sir Isaac has also held solo shows across the world and his work is represented in public and private collections including those of MoMA, Tate Modern, the National Museum of Norway

Stella McCartney, CBE

CSM alum Stella McCartney is also among the recipients of this year’s CBE for her services to fashion and sustainability. McCartney has remained a strong member of the UAL community, previously attending the 2016 Kering Talk on Sustainable Fashion as guest of honour and collaborating with LCF alum Ed Curtis. She also received a Special Recognition Award for Innovation in 2017 for her commitment to shaping a sustainable fashion industry and an OBE in the 2013 New Year Honours for her services to fashion, just to name a few.

Cornelia Parker, CBE

Former staff member at Chelsea College of Art & Design Cornelia Parker has been awarded a CBE for services to the arts. The visual artist is best known for her sculpture and installation art and recognised by the Tate as one of Britain's best loved and most acclaimed contemporary artists. Parker’s work tackles themes of violence, ecology and human rights. She was appointed (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours, and won, among other prizes, the Artist of the Year Apollo Award in 2016, which included a shortlist of prominent artists such as David Hockney and Carmen Herrera.

Jane Byam Shaw, OBE

Jane Byam Shaw, co-founder of the Felix Project, has received an OBE for her services to the community in London. She’s the former governor of Byam Shaw School of Art, which became a part of Central Saint Martins in 2003. Her charity, the Felix Project, helped tackle food poverty during Covid-19 by using the capital’s staggering level of food surpluses to support struggling communities. On the charity’s website, Shaw commented:

“It’s an absolute privilege to have had the opportunity to play a role in building this wonderful charity where staff and volunteers work so hard every day towards our vision of a London where good food is never wasted and nobody goes hungry. We are needed more than ever now so many more Londoners are struggling to feed themselves and their families.”

Michael Foreman, OBE

Children’s author and illustrator Michael Foreman has been awarded an OBE for his  services to literature. He spent a year studying Commercial Art at St Martin’s School of Art (now Central Saint Martins) under Joe Tilson, before lecturing there himself and has since illustrated books by the likes of Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl and William Shakespeare. His exhibitions have been held across the world and he has illustrated over 170 books, 20 of which he wrote himself. Foreman is a double recipient of the Kate Greenaway Medal and has won a number of prestigious prizes and awards, including being named honorary fellow at Royal College of Art.

Chila Kumari Singh Burman, MBE

LCC alum and Honorary Fellow Chila Kumari Singh Burman has received an MBE for her services to visual art, particularly during Covid-19. She’s a mixed media artist who combines painting, collage and printing, as well as multimedia in her work. Born in Liverpool, she calls herself a ‘Punjabi Liverpudlian’ who often references her Indian roots and pop culture. Her work has featured in the Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Wellcome Trust, as well as numerous international institutions. Other notable achievements include being one of the first British Asian female artists to have a monograph written about her work Lynda Nead’s Chila Kumari Burman: Beyond Two Cultures [1995; 2012] and ART CHENNAI Artist in Residence [2012].

Craig Green, MBE

CSM Craig Green has received an MBE for services to fashion. He was awarded a full scholarship when studying for his MA in Central Saint Martins in 2012, and later went on to receive the L’Oreal Professionnel Creative Award for a 17-look menswear collection. Since then, he’s won numerous fashion prizes, including the British Menswear Designer Fashion Awards in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the BFC/GQ Designer Menswear Fund prize 2016 and Emerging Menswear Designer at the British Fashion Awards 2014. Green’s designs have also featured in major exhibits including ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ at Metropolitan Museum of Art and ‘HEAVENLY BODIES: Fashion and the Catholic imagination’.

Grace Wales Bonner, MBE

CSM alum Grace Wales Bonner has been awarded an MBE for services to fashion. Bonner graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2014, whose eponymous label is informed by broad cultural research and the multiplicity of perspectives. Born in south-east London to an English mother and Jamaican father, she often explores race, colonialism and identity in her work. Throughout her career so far, she has received numerous awards including:

• Emerging Menswear Designer at the British Fashion Awards (2015)
• LVMH Young Designer Prize (2016)
• Winner of the British Fashion Council/ Vogue Designer Fashion Fund (2019)
• CFDA International Men's Designer of the Year (2021).

Her success began soon after her BA Fashion show in 2014, when her sartorial exploration of european opulence and black identity won her the L’Oreal Professionnel Designer of the Year Award.

Elisabeth Murdoch, CBE

Elisabeth Murdoch has received a CBE for services to diversity in the arts and to charity. She is the Chair of the Freelands Foundation, which is supporting our Decolonising Arts Institute’s 20/20 programme: a project that sees 20 Black and Brown artists placed in residence at art organisations across the UK, to produce new commissions for permanent collections. The Freelands Foundation also supports an additional 15 organisations including:

• The Arts Council
• Open School East
• Create London.

An entrepreneur and philanthropist, Murdoch is at the forefront of increasing art education and making the industry more equitable for all.

Darren Henley, CBE

Chief Executive of the Arts Council Darren Henley received a CBE for his services to the arts. He received an Honorary Doctorate from UAL in 2018, and has dedicated his career to British music and radio for several decades. He has previously received an OBE for services to music and the Sir Charles Groves Prize for his outstanding contribution to British music.

Alongside his work which includes:

• more than 30 books
• the creation of new networks of Music Education Hubs and Heritage Schools
• the Museums and Schools Programme
• the BFI Film Academy and the National Youth Dance Company,

his two independent government reviews into music education (2011) and cultural education (2012) made a comprehensive argument for arts and cultural education in school to fuel a world-class creative economy.

UAL congratulates all who have been honoured this year.

Discover the full honours list for 2022.