Photographic record of the Royals
A century of royal photographic portraits to go on display at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
FOR centuries, portraiture has played a vital role in shaping the public’s perception of the Royal Family. Over the past 100 years, no artistic medium has had a greater impact on the royal image than photography. Royal Portraits: A Century of
Photography charts the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s to the present day, bringing together more than 150 photographic prints, proofs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.
The photographs presented in the exhibition will be vintage prints – the original works produced by the photographer, most of which have never been on public display.
The works on show demonstrate how the Royal Family has harnessed the power of photography to project both the grandeur and tradition of monarchy, and at times an unprecedented sense of intimacy and relatability.
The exhibition examines the changing status of photography as an art form and consider the cultural, artistic, and technological shifts that influenced the work of the most celebrated royal photographers, from Cecil Beaton and Dorothy Wilding to Annie Leibovitz and Rankin.
Archival documents and unreleased proofs shed light on the behind-the-scenes process of commissioning, selecting and retouching royal portraits.
From photographers’ handwritten annotations to neverbefore-seen correspondence with members of the Royal Family and their staff, these materials reveal the stories behind some of the most enduring photographs ever taken of the Royal Family.
The exhibition opens with the 1920s and 30s, the golden age of the society photographer.
Post-war prosperity and technological advances led to a boom in photographic studios, and members of the British and European Royal Families were among the ‘Bright Young Things’ eager to be captured on camera.
Many of the new studios were operated by women, and female photographers such as Dorothy Wilding and Madame Yevonde were among those experimenting with a bolder, more modern aesthetic.
In the mid-20th century, no royal photographer had a greater impact on shaping the monarchy’s public image than Cecil Beaton.
The exhibition presents some of Beaton’s most memorable photographs, taken over six decades.
These include Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s famed 1939 shoot in the Buckingham Palace Gardens, dressed in her ‘White Wardrobe’ by Norman Hartnell, and Beaton’s original Coronation portraits of Queen Elizabeth II – arguably considered the most prestigious photography
commission of the century. Alessandro Nasini, curator of Royal Portraits: A Century of
Photography, said: “This is the first exhibition from the Royal Collection entirely dedicated to modern portrait photography, the