A collection of family photographs rarely proves more interesting than this.
Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) produced what are usually considered the definitive photographs of the Queen and her family between 1942 and 1968, when Beaton photographed her for the last time before his show at the National Portrait Gallery.
A Changing Style
These are not typical family photographs. They are PR shots, and this fact is exemplified by accompanying notes to the press on the clothes worn and embargoes.
Beaton’s style therefore changed over the decades to reflect fashion and public opinion. in the 1940s he employed elaborate, Rococo-style backdrops, reinforcing the distance between viewer and sitter and helping to reassure people of the monarchy’s security despite the War.
After the War, post-war austerity Britain craved warmth and accessibility from the Royal Family, and Beaton's portraits of Prince Charles and Princess Anne are appropriately charming. One lovely portrait shows the Queen looking fondly at her baby son in his crib - a photograph any doting mother can relate to - and another has toddler Prince Charles planting a kiss on his sister. Notes to a picture of baby Princess Anne explain how amused the Queen was by so many people trying to attract her daughter's attention for the perfect shot.
The 1960s saw Beaton replacing the fake backdrops with plain white backgrounds that didn't detract from his sitters. One of the most beautiful photographs in the show is of the Queen and baby Prince Andrew, taken in 1960; its beauty lies in its simplicity and its depiction of a tender, protective mother-and-child relationship with no obvious trappings of royalty. Again, this is a photograph that the general public would have found it easy to relate to.
The 1968 Sitting
He retained this simple, stark style for the 1968 series. The highlight of the series is a striking, contemplative image of the Queen in the Admiral's Boat Cloak against an equally simple blue background.
There are other, more elaborate and regal portraits, but it's this one that stands as a perfect PR portrait of a benevolent, thoughtful monarch.
These were the last photographs Beaton took of the Queen, though he continued to photograph other members of the Royal Family until 1979. He was replaced as pre-eminent royal photographer by (says exhibition curator Susanna Brown) 'the obvious choice' Antony Armstrong-Jones, Princess Margaret's then-husband and later Lord Snowdon.
Beaton's Nerves
Accompanying the photographs are some of Beaton’s fascinating cuttings books and extracts from his diaries.
The former (there are 3 here, though he produced 45 in all) are glorious records of newspaper headlines and fashions in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. His diary extracts show how the responsibility of his position continued to weigh on him.
For example he admits to feeling tense and stressed before the Coronation - hardly a surprise, given the pressure, but the photographs were a triumph. In her official portrait the new Queen poses against a backdrop of Westminster Abbey’s interior, wearing the imperial state crown and official jewellery, and holding the sceptre. In this series of photographs the Royal Family is remote, distant and stately as the occasion befits.
The relationship was clearly not always a simple one. Beaton’s diary entry prior to the 1968 sitting reads: “Our points of view, our tastes are so different. The result is a compromise between two people and the fates play a large part.”
The Queen Mother
Despite his admiration and fondness for the Queen, the Queen Mother was Beaton's favourite sitter and a genuine friend to him. In 1963 she wrote to thank him for a book of photographs he had sent, mentioning the nostalgia she felt looking through the images and how grateful she was that he had managed to portray her family as 'nice'.
Jennie Gillions - Jennie Gillions has a History and Archaeology degree. She is a published writer with particular interests in art, history and mental ...
