The curator of a new exhibition of royal portraits at Buckingham Palace has defended the practice of retouching images despite controversy over a Mother’s Day photograph taken by Prince William.
Alessandro Nasini, the curator behind the exhibition celebrating 100 years of royal portrait photography, said retouching – which can range from simply cropping an image to removing entire backgrounds – remains a vital tool in royal portrait photography.
Many of the photographs on public display in the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, have since today been retouched and notes describe the process.
His comments came two months after five major news and picture agencies issued ‘takedown notices’ removing a photograph of the Princess of Wales with her children for Mother’s Day because it had been digitally altered. Kate later admitted that she had been experimenting with editing her family photo.
The curator of a new exhibition of royal portraits at Buckingham Palace has defended the practice of retouching images despite controversy over a Mother’s Day photograph taken by Prince William. Above: The image of the Princess of Wales with her children, Prince George, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, which was released to mark Mother’s Day before sparking controversy after it emerged that Kate I had edited it.
Despite stricter media guidelines on image manipulation amid concerns that the public must be able to trust images to be genuine in an era of artificial intelligence and deepfakes, Nasini, curator of photographs at the Collection Real, said it was a vital tool.
He said: “I’m not familiar with those [media tests] but retouching per se has always been part of photography since its beginnings.
‘It’s very important specifically for portrait photography because it’s a creative process. It is not press photography, it is not reportage, it is not commercial photography.
‘It’s simply a tool that photographers have always used to translate their vision, the aesthetic, into the final print.
‘It’s part of the creative process. It’s just one of the tools.’
A public relations officer prevented Nasini from commenting further on the controversy over Kate’s photo with her children, which occurred during a period of wild and inaccurate speculation about the princess’s whereabouts.
The exhibition, open to tourists until October 6, reveals the stories behind many iconic royal photographs over the decades and displays more than 150 photographs or other items.
Among the treasures featured are a never-before-seen family photograph marking the birth of four royal babies, the Queen Mother’s personal copy of her daughter’s coronation portrait and the oldest surviving color photographic print of a member of the royal family.
Many of the photographs on public display in the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, have since been retouched and notes describe the process.
The photo of four royal mothers shows Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, Princess Alexandra and the Duchess of Kent, all holding their newborn babies.
It was taken by Princess Margaret’s photographer husband, Lord Snowdon, as a personal token of gratitude to Sir John Peel, the royal obstetrician who delivered the four babies in two months in 1964.
The babies are Prince Edward, now Duke of Edinburgh, Lady Sarah Chatto, James Ogilvy and Lady Helen Taylor, who turned 60 this year.
The image is displayed alongside a handwritten letter from Margaret to her sister, the late Queen, asking “Dear Lilibet” to sign the print “as a souvenir of two extraordinary months of giving.”
Margaret also suggested they go to the theater to see Noel Coward’s “witty” comedy play Hay Fever.
‘If you enjoyed ‘Private Lives’, this is the ticket. Would you like to see it? “It would be so much fun to watch it together,” Margaret wrote.
The exhibition, Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, features some of the most famous photographs taken of royalty by celebrated photographers such as Dorothy Wilding, Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz, David Bailey, Andy Warhol and Rankin.
In stark contrast, Jamie Reid’s infamous image of Elizabeth II is also on display for the cover of the Sex Pistols single God Save the Queen, released a week before her 1977 Silver Jubilee and showing her eyes and mouth covered by a Typography that resembles a ransom note. .
Visitors can see the memorable 40th birthday portrait of the Princess of Wales by Paolo Roversi, in which Kate’s dress and pose bear a striking visual resemblance to an 1864 portrait of Alexandra, Princess of Wales, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter from the Royal Collection, which is located nearby.
It shows how innovations in color and digital photography between the 1980s and 2020s revolutionized this art form, ushering in a new sense of experimentation and joy.
Bold and colorful examples on display include Rankin’s 2001 photograph of a smiling Queen Elizabeth II, superimposed on the Union Flag; Polly Borland’s Golden Jubilee portrait of the late Queen on a sparkling gold background; and the late Majesty’s portrait of her by Andy Warhol in 1985, sprinkled with diamond dust to make it sparkle in the light.
The oldest surviving color photographic print of a member of the Royal Family shows Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (sister-in-law of King George VI and Edward VIII) on her wedding day.
The photograph was taken in 1935 by Madame Yevonde, a pioneer of color photography and an advocate for women photographers.
Also on display for the first time are never-before-seen wartime images taken by Cecil Beaton, demonstrating how King George VI and Queen Elizabeth used photography to project a sense of stability and hope for the nation.
A photograph of the King and Queen inspecting bomb damage at Buckingham Palace in 1940 shows them smiling comfortingly among the rubble, while a 1943 portrait taken at the Royal Lodge in Windsor shows them gathered around the King’s desk with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, conveying a reassuring sense of domesticity and calm.
Beaton photographed the Royal Family over six decades and was chosen as the official photographer for Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.
Cecil Beaton took this beautiful photograph of Princess Elizabeth in 1942. It is on display in the new exhibition.
Visitors can view a contact sheet with evidence from the Coronation photo shoot, along with a note from Martin Charteris, the Queen’s deputy private secretary, recommending to Prince Philip which images should be sent as personal keepsakes to the Royal Family and the Bridesmaids. Also on display is the photograph later sent to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, signed by Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and Cecil Beaton.
Nasini said: “The Royal Collection contains some of the most enduring photographs ever taken of the Royal Family, captured by the most famous portrait photographers of the last hundred years, from Dorothy Wilding and Cecil Beaton to Annie Leibovitz, David Bailey and Rankin. .
“Along with these beautiful antique prints, which cannot be permanently displayed for conservation reasons, we are pleased to share archival correspondence and never-before-seen proofs that will give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating such unforgettable royal portraits. .’
