Portraits and power: How photos shape our perception of royalty
The impact of royal portraiture is the focus of a new exhibition about to open at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
“I don’t think it would be very good,” wrote society photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones on his proof from a photo session at Buckingham Palace in 1958. It’s an image of a husband and wife looking at each other while standing on the balcony of the inner quadrangle of Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are in the most formal of dress — she’s wearing her Robe of State and the George IV Diadem while he’s in his Royal Navy uniform — yet they are visibly relaxed and comfortable with each other, their outfits, and their photographer. Starting in the 1950s, Armstrong-Jones had taken some of the best images of the royal family, including another formal portrait of the couple the previous year.
For all the intimacy of this balcony shot, it would be another far more formal image from that 1958 photo shoot that now resides in the National Portrait Gallery.
How and why an image is chosen and what it says about the royal family as well as society is the focus of a new exhibition, Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, opening on May 17 at the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. The exhibition will bring together more than 150 photographic prints, proofs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives, including original works that have never previously been on public display.
Just as painters used their skills to create lasting images of monarchs in previous centuries — think of the imposing Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I — photographers have used their skill behind a camera in the past 100 years to capture “both the grandeur and traditions of monarchy, and, at time, an unprecedented sense of intimacy and relatability,” says the Royal Collection.
THE FAIRY QUEEN
Perhaps the most iconic images of royalty during the past century were taken by Cecil Beaton. In 1939, as the Depression lingered and war loomed, he was at Buckingham Palace to take what would be a celebrated series of images of Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother).
In that era, fashion favoured the sleek modernity of her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Windsor. But those slim, body-hugging clothes didn’t suit Queen Elizabeth’s figure or style. “She is very short and her heels are very high. I liked her — but I feared for the camera results,” wrote Beaton in his diary.
The photographer transformed Queen Elizabeth into the epitome of a romantic fairytale queen. She wore elaborate crinoline confections designed by Norman Hartnell and a glorious assortment of royal jewels for the photo shoot in the Blue Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace. “To my utter amazement and joy the Queen looked a dream — a porcelain doll — with flawless little face like luminous china in front of a fire,” Beaton wrote of that photo session in 1939. “She is a great lady — and childish — an angel with genius.”
That majestic yet approachable image of the future Queen Mother could best be seen in the nine proofs (above). “The Queen could see the reflection in the mirror and was very pleased herself with the effect and like a little child pleased with a new party dress beamed with contentment,” Beaton wrote.
Yet not all the images were released. In the late afternoon, Queen Elizabeth changed into a white garden party dress by Hartnell and walked on the grounds of the palace, carrying a jewel-encrusted gold parasol that Beaton said belonged to Catherine the Great of Russia. “Those idyllic photographs were felt to be out of keeping with the mood of a country” which would be at war in two months, explained Roy Strong, then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in his book, Cecil Beaton: The Royal Portraits. They would not be published until the 1960s.
Beaton would continue to photograph royals — his images of the young beautiful Princess Margaret are particularly evocative — yet his photographic style would fall out of fashion as new photographers opted for more pared down images.
CLEAN AND SIMPLE
After the war, royal portraits would slowly reflect the change occurring in society, which was becoming more equal and more informal. Out were the fussily elaborate backdrops and dreamy theatricality used by Beaton for the coronation images, replaced by a crisp, modern, less stuffy aesthetic of younger photographers, especially Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was a popular choice well before his marriage to Princess Margaret in 1960.
“Being photographed is a bit like being in the electric chair; nobody likes it,” explained Armstrong-Jones in his book, Snowdon Sittings 1979-1983. “I like to direct my subjects and tell them exactly what to do,” he stated. “Often when people are told exactly what to do, they become more themselves that they know.”
Look at the image of the royal children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, which Antony Armstrong-Jones took in 1956 — they are clearly young children of that era wearing clothes similar to those found in the wardrobes of most young children, with only the palace locale identifying them as royals. Eleven years later, his portrait of his wife exudes royal confidence and attitude as Princess Margaret wears nothing but one very elaborate earring and an intricate fall of curls that melds into the dark background, leaving viewers captivated by her beauty.
BREAKING THE MOULD
By the 1980s, royal photographic portraiture began to separate into increasingly divergent paths — traditional images, such as the powerfully majestic photos of Elizabeth II taken by Annie Leibovitz, and then far more modern artistic offerings, such as Andy Warhol’s colourful portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that turned a formal image taken by Peter Grugeon in 1975 into pop art. Warhol “transformed the Queen’s features through abstraction and exaggerated colour,” stated Paul Moorhouse in his book, The Queen: Art & Image. “The implication is that the public face is pure artifice.”
What hasn’t changed is the attention to detail that go into creating such images — books of royal photography all recount how photographers can spend days or weeks planning their shoots, knowing that they may have just a few minutes with their royal subjects. And it’s still those images that still form our impression of royals.
Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, May 17 – October 6, 2024