Artist Tracey Emin poses with her Paralympic poster "Birds 2012" at the unveiling ceremony of the official Olympic and Paralympic posters for London 2012 at the Tate Britain gallery in London November 4, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) unveiled 12 official Olympic and Paralympic posters on Friday, which were created by 12 UK's top artists.

Since 1912 each Olympic host city has commissioned one or more posters to celebrate the hosting of the Games and LOCOG has commissioned 12 of the UK's leading artists to create images to celebrate London hosting the 2012 Games, six for the Olympic Games and six for the Paralympic Games.

The 12 artists were selected from a long list of over 100 artists. Four of the chosen artists have previously won the Turner Prize and five have represented the UK at the Venice Biennale.

A set of the images has been given to the Queen for the Royal Collection and to other important British art collections, including the Government Art Collection which will be displaying the images in 10 Downing St in 2012 and the British Council which is planning on exhibiting the images across China in 2012 as part of 'UK Now', the largest festival of British arts ever to be shown in China, as well as displaying the posters in British Council's across the world.

Besides, members of the public will be able to buy copies of the images as both posters and limited edition prints from the London 2012 online shop since Friday.