Over the past century, the Royal Family has harnessed the power of photography to promote its image, from Cecil Beaton’s iconic photographs of the Queen Mother taken on the eve of the Second World War to Kate’s ill-fated photograph on Mother’s Day. Mother in March.
Later this month, more than 150 original photographs – most never before exhibited in public – alongside written material from the Royal Archives will go on display at the newly named King’s Gallery and MailOnline has been given an exclusive preview.
Appropriately, the exhibition begins with a dramatic portrait of the King in his regalia taken on Coronation Day last year by Hugo Burnand.
The color digital image sits alongside an intimate private black and white photograph of Charles’s grandparents, Albert Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon at the time of their engagement in January 1923.
The exhibition opens with a dramatic portrait of the King taken on Coronation Day by Hugo Burnand
The Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, was considered a brilliant young man during the golden age of the society photographer.
The Duke of Kent and his glamorous wife Marina were eager to be captured on camera.
Queen Elizabeth II on her coronation day by celebrated photographer Cecil Beaton
According to Alessandro Nasini, curator of Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, “This is the first exhibition in the Royal Collection entirely dedicated to modern portrait photography, an artistic medium that has helped shape the way the world sees to the British monarchy”.
Nasini decided to open the exhibition in the 1920s “because it was a fascinating period when technological advances made it easier to print photographs in newspapers and magazines.” British Vogue was founded in 1916, joining Tatler and followed by Harper’s Bazaar in 1929.
“This was also the golden age of the society photographer.”
The youngest royals were among the ‘bright young people’ eager to be caught on camera, notably the charismatic Prince of Wales, as well as his brother George, Duke of Kent and his glamorous wife Marina, while the future George VI and Queen Elizabeth were often photographed with their daughters Elizabeth and Margaret to promote their image as the ideal family unit.
The grandest images on display are the iconic coronation portraits of 27-year-old Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton.
As the curator explains, “they were taken at Buckingham Palace after the ceremony with images of Westminster Abbey as a backdrop.”
“It was initially suggested that photographs could be taken in the Abbey or its grounds after the ceremony, although this was soon ruled out.”
Also on display are Beaton’s photographs of the Queen Mother, as well as a rarely seen image of Princess Margaret taken when she was 25 years old and undeniably beautiful.
She is shown sitting on the steps of Clarence House, dressed in an evening dress and holding her Sealyham Terrier, Pippin.
In peculiar contrast we have the smallest royal photograph, an image of the king’s great-grandmother, Queen Mary, sitting at her desk. The print, which measures a tiny 1.8cm x 2.2cm, is normally displayed in her namesake dollhouse at Windsor Castle.
Nearby is the largest royal photograph on display, a spectacular 2013 image of the king, as Prince of Wales, taken by Nadav Kander, commissioned for a Time magazine cover.
Elizabeth II spent her entire life in front of the camera lens, and Mail Online has had exclusive access to one of her first portraits that has never before been seen in public.
Taken by society photographer Marcus Adams, it was made using solarization, a technique produced by re-exposing the photographic print to light during the developing process.
Cecil Beaton took this beautiful photograph of Princess Elizabeth in 1942
A 1952 portrait of the new Queen Elizabeth II by Dorothy Wilding. The Queen is still in mourning after the death of her father, King George VI
Princess Margaret photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1955. This image has not been seen since it first appeared in the newspapers of the day.
A portrait by Beaton of Elizabeth, queen consort, later queen mother, in 1939
The Queen and Prince Philip photographed by Antony Armstrong-Jones, two years before marrying Princess Margaret. The photographer’s instructions for reproduction are clearly visible. For example, he did not want the image to be cropped or “cropped” and instructs that the background remain clear.
A glamorous 1949 image of Princess Margaret by Cecil Beaton
This was a technique used deliberately by the surrealists in the 1930s, but of course it could also have been created thanks to the accidental entry of light into the darkroom.
Either way, the future Queen Mother was delighted with this image of her eldest daughter and Adams gave her the gelatin silver print for her private collection.
After all the fuss over the photo editing of the Princess of Wales’s Mother’s Day portrait, it’s interesting to see how previous generations manipulated their shots.
There is a fascinating image of the Queen and Prince Philip taken in 1958 by Antony Armstrong-Jones, two years before he married Princess Margaret.
Below the image of the Queen and Duke, Snowdon has added the instructions: “Please do not crop”, “Background should be kept clear” and “Rough guide – I don’t think it is the size of a very good postcard as they would”. be so small.’
Another exclusive is a contact sheet with images of the Queen and Princess Margaret in blue capes made for the shoot, which also included the Queen Mother to mark her 80th birthday.
The photographer, Norman Parkinson, continued to instruct them: “Madam, lift your chin please” or “Madam, to the side please”, until Princess Margaret shrieked: “Listen Parks, it’s no use, ma’am, letting us do this, because I have no idea who you are referring to. You see we are all ladies!
This image of Princess Margaret was taken by Lord Snowdon seven years after they married
This image of Princess Elizabeth, never before seen in public, was taken by Marcus Adams in 1939. This portrait was made using solarization, a technique produced by re-exposing the photographic print to light during the developing process.
This never-before-seen contact sheet is of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret made by Norman Parkinson in 1980.
The exhibition reveals the planning that goes into a real photo shoot. Most of the background discussions are between the photographer and royal private secretaries, but there is a personal memo from the late Queen, revealed for the first time.
In 2016, American photographer Annie Leibovitz was commissioned to produce some family photographs of Queen Elizabeth with her dogs, as well as some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to mark her 90th birthday.
Both groups were to have been taken outside at Windsor, but poignantly the Queen vetoed the idea of the little ones joining her on the terrace, writing that “if it is going to be as cold as it is today, the little children could not be taken out on the garden!’
From black and white to color, from plate glass to digital, over the past 100 years, no artistic medium has had a greater impact on the real image than photography.
- Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography will be on display at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from 17 May to 6 October 2024