Steve McQueen to create portrait of London schoolchildren

LONDON – Academy Award-winning director Steve McQueen is planning an ambitious project to take a portrait of every third-year pupil in London — tens of thousands in all.

The “12 Years a Slave” director will oversee a team of photographers taking class photos at all of London’s 2,400 primary schools over the next nine months.

Tate Britain, which co-commissioned the work, said Tuesday that the project would capture a moment of “excitement, anxiety and hope” in the lives of the Year 3 children, who are 7 and 8 years old.

The work will be displayed at Tate Britain and other venues in London starting in November 2019.

London-born McQueen won art’s prestigious Turner Prize in 1999 before launching a movie career. His latest film is the heist thriller “Widows,” starring Viola Davis.