Shock Art Of Queen

The Queen maintained a dignified silence on Monday after being depicted as a toothless Cabbage Patch doll in a controversial new art portrait being shown at Tate Modern. But at least the monarch was spared from New York artist George Condo's original idea -- he wanted to paint her as a nude in the style of Spanish art master Diego Velazquez. Asked what he was trying to portray in his depiction of one of the most famous faces in the world, Condo said: "It is a nightmare picture of herself in her own head. It is an improvisation of her own nightmare." Tate Modern has stoutly defended displaying the painting but Brendan Kelly of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters described it as "embarrassingly bad". Buckingham Palace would not say whether the queen was amused or not by the Cabbage Patch portrait. "We are not commenting on it. This is very much a matter for the artist," a spokesman at her London residence told Reuters. For the full story - click the title Irish Art