An actively detunable planar quadrature surface coil for human body imaging at 4 T has been constructed and compared with a conventional linear surface coil. The coil could be used as a transmit/receive or a receive-only device in combination with a volume transmit coil. Transmission, reception profiles and the corresponding images acquired with each coil, as well as with both individual modes of the quadrature coil, are presented. Data collected using a tissue equivalent loaded phantom recorded with the linear surface coil demonstrated significant intensity distortions due to RF penetration artifact. The quadrature surface coil, on the other hand, provided compensation of the artifact, separately in its transmission and reception profiles as well as in the resultant images. Substantial sensitivity gain was also observed for the quadrature coil compared to the linear device. Significant advantages of using the quadrature surface coil over the linear device at 4 T have, therefore, been demonstrated.