Susanna Blunt

Who is Susanna Blunt?

Susanna Blunt is a Canadian portrait artist who designed the most recent portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the current Canadian coinage, which began in 2003. She was born in Harbin, China, the daughter of an English banker. Blunt started her studies at the Banff School of Fine Arts as a young teenager. After finishing high school she had a year of private lessons in Victoria, British Columbia. She moved to London, England and did four years of art school, then won a scholarship to the Royal Academy for another four years, during which she won several awards and a silver medal.

The year before graduating she held her first one-woman show at the now-defunct Canadian Art Gallery in Calgary, Alberta, and then returned to England to complete the work for her diploma.