Art for the new Elizabeth line goes on display at the Whitechapel Gallery

Artworks which will grace stations along the new Elizabeth Line are to be showcased in a exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery.

Sketches, plans and models will be preview at the gallery nine months before the line opens next December.

Among the works is Chantal Joffe’s A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel - paper collages digitally enlarged to two metres high and then cut out in aluminium and fixed to the platform walls.

Joffe said she was excited to see her work becoming “part of the fabric of London”.

She said: “All my thinking around this project for the station at Whitechapel has been about the journeys we make and how we make them our own – through the people we see on a daily basis, or the private maps of significant places we carry in our heads.

“Part of the challenge has been to develop small, intimate collages into large scale works, and to retain a sense of the personal in a public space. I hope I have achieved this by bringing a sense of intimacy, as well as colour and warmth, into the station at Whitechapel.”

The line’s route will pass through 41 stations from Reading to Shenfield with many hosting large works as part of the Crossrail Art Programme.

Crossrail chairman Sir Terry Morgan said: “When the Elizabeth line opens in December 2018, almost 100,000 journeys will start or end at the new station in Whitechapel.

“It’s wonderful that this vibrant and diverse community, which the railway was built to serve, will be reflected in Chantal’s beautiful and striking artwork.

“It’s a fabulous addition to Crossrail Art Programme, which is now clearly the largest and most impressive addition to the catalogue of London’s public artwork in a generation.”

Art Capital: Art for the Elizabeth line runs at the gallery in Whitechapel High Street from March 13 to May 6 next year