Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy at work on her portrait of Queen Elizabeth

DURING her long years as monarch, the late Queen sat for a wide range of portrait painters, patiently subjecting herself to their take on her and then perhaps scratching her head over the likes of Justin Mortimer’s disembodied head or Lucian Freud’s frowning matriarch.

She would have been rather more taken with Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy’s 2002 portrait, showing a proud and relaxed Queen standing against the backdrop of a bright sunset. It also looked like her. The work was the highlight of the painter’s career before her life was cut short by cancer in 2012.

Two years before her death, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chinwe at the launch of an exhibition of her work at the now defunct Forge in Camden Town. Although frail looking, she was full of beans as she took me around the show, which focused on the flora of both Nigeria, where she was born, and Suffolk, where she lived.

“I love two flowers in particular, the hibiscus and the poppy, beautiful blooms that die very quickly. For me they reflect the beauty and transience of life,” she told me.

Inevitably, though, the conversation turned to the Queen. “I remember feeling quite nervous as I walked down those very long corridors of Buckingham Palace for the first sitting,” she laughed.

“I had already met her formally but she was very different this time, much more open. She went out of her way to make me feel comfortable and kept on cracking jokes. I laughed so much that day. At the same time she was very gracious. I hope that the painting reflects these qualities.”

Portrait of Elizabeth II, 2002, by Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, oil on canvas, 183x112cm. Image courtesy of the artist

The painting, now part of the Royal Collection, was commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat in 2001 to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee the following year.

Although already an established portraitist, with Olympic athlete Kriss Akabusi and Commonwealth Secretary-General Chief Emeka Anyaoku being previous sitters, she was surprised that her portfolio had been chosen out of the five submissions.

“Obviously I was delighted,” she said, adding that portraiture was her favourite genre: “I have always liked looking at people and trying to capture what I see so this was a huge challenge for me.”

Despite living through the horrors of the Biafra war as a teenager, then struggling with chronic illness as an adult, Chinwe was a self-confessed optimist and her work is noted for its positive and lively tone. “I do try and take my paintings to an optimistic or celebratory level, wherever they start. Taking the positive elevates, and there are many positives to see if we really look,” she explained.

This is evident in her study of the Queen, who stands tall in her diamond tiara as head of the Commonwealth against an imaginary landscape depicting the Taj Mahal, the Houses of Parliament and the Sydney Opera House.

Seemingly unburdened by her 50 years on the throne, her robes of office are cast aside on a chair next to her, while she wears a simple floor-length gown that might look frumpy were it not coloured a startling blue.

By all accounts, the Queen was delighted with the painting, which was unveiled at a ceremony in London by former Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon on Commonwealth Day in 2002. Chinwe, the first black person to officially paint the monarch and the second Nigerian to depict her after Ben Enwonwu’s 1957 sculpture, would go on to receive an MBE in the Queen’s 2009 birthday honours list.

Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy’s painting of poppies. ‘I love two flowers in particular, the hibiscus and the poppy – beautiful blooms that die very quickly’

Born in south-east Nigeria in 1952, she grew up loving art even though it was not taught at school. “Art was around us all the time, on walls, shops signs, in masquerades,” she remembered with a smile. “I was always drawing or making things out of broken bits of wood and on my way home from school I used to paint signs for the small businesses, like barbers who wanted the different styles they did to be on show.”

Although art was not taken seriously as a profession in Nigeria in those days, she had her parents’ blessing to study it and she travelled to London in 1975, enrolling in an art foundation course at East Ham College of Technology before graduating in graphic design at the famous Hornsey College of Art.

It was almost by accident that she became a professional painter several years later, in 1988 when she was 36. “I was working as a freelance graphic artist but got married and had two children – meeting deadlines became very difficult. I was always drawing my sons and people asked me to do their children. I soon saw it was a way of earning money.”

Using mainly oils or pastels, her work also included still-life, landscapes and scenes from African life, capturing the vibrancy and brightness of her subject matter with a vivid use of colour.

She exhibited internationally and enjoyed many commissions, one from Arsenal footballer Martin Keown to paint Arsenal Stadium – she was a big Arsenal fan and often attended matches at Highbury.

Chinwe, who would go on to have a third child, first met the Queen in 1999 during the unveiling of her portrait of Anyaoku. The Queen’s own now hangs alongside it at the Commonwealth headquarters in Marlborough House, London, and can be viewed by appointment.