Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton

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• published: 13 Feb 2012
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Susanna Brown: The British royal family, from the very earliest years of photography, understood the important role that this young medium could play in sending their image throughout the world, throughout the Empire, as it was then. Victoria and Albert were definitely great patrons of photography and I think from those very earliest years, the royal family has continued to work with photographers to produce their image for the public. Certainly, Beaton’s pictures were very much intended to be seen by the public. The primary purpose of Beaton’s photographs was to be reproduced in the press, not only the British press, but also across the commonwealth and around the world. Robin Muir: Cecil Beaton had a very long and distinguished career with Vogue. By the 1950s he was one of the great fashion photographers that Vogue has, probably its greatest fashion photographer at that time and really he does call the shots. So a lot of the day-to-day fashion photography is done by what one might call the ‘minor stars’, leaving Beaton free for these rather wonderful special assignments. If you had to think of who the greatest living British photographer at that time was, you know Cecil Beaton would be there. He has all the right attributes – he’s already on very good terms with the royal family since 1939 and his first photographs, he has a huge range of social connections, he is tremendously confident. In short, he’s the kind of man that you would expect to do such a big occasion as the coronation. I’d be hard pressed to think of anybody else that would do it so well, so readily and so effectively. Susanna Brown: The archive of Beaton’s royal photographs was acquired in 1987. The whole archive was bequeathed to the museum by Cecil Beaton’s secretary, Eileen Hove. In total, there are about 18,000 objects in the Beaton collection – it is huge – but that includes not only the photographs, but also negatives, transparencies and 45 huge volumes of Beaton’s press cuttings which he kept from his teenage years throughout his life, right up until his death in 1980. We are really pleased to be including in the exhibition some of Beaton’s contact sheets which haven’t been exhibited before. They really show the subtle movements within each pose – often he’s giving very particular directions to the Queen or the other royal sitters. The contact sheets reveal his directions and they’re really fantastic objects in themselves to show. For us they also serve as a record of the un re-touched records. The final images, which visitors will see in the exhibition, Have all been very heavily retouched and this is a really important stage in the process of the creation of a royal portrait. Often Beaton would advise his re-touchers to slim the waistlines of the sitters or perhaps remove a double chin. These details were very important in constructing and idealised image. These aren’t documentary shots, they’re a much more romantic style of portraiture in which no hair is out of place and every detail is perfect. Beaton never worked alone at his royal portrait sittings. They were very elaborate events that required a crew of people to assist. For us, as historians researching Beaton’s work, it has been really useful to be able to interview some of the assistants who are still alive. In particular John Drysdale and Ray Harwood, who both worked with Beaton on the day of the coronation sitting at Buckingham Palace. Both Ray and John were assistants at Vogue studios, so they worked with a number of different photographers there, primarily on fashion and portrait sittings. Ray Harwood: Beaton was Beaton and he was very much in control. At the coronation he desperately needed us because there was a lot of work to be done and the preparation for it took two days. On the third day the Queen came in and sat down into a prepared set. We had to do a dummy run with the lighting and know – you didn’t stand there and wait for the Queen to pose and then read the lighting. By God, no chance! John Drysdale: I think we’d exposed film that had previously been developed to make sure we got the right exposure. Beaton came in and after a very short time they started processing through all these people. We were taking pictures as fast as you could take them, piling the slides up and getting them out of the way, then the next lot in … Ray Horwood: Remember that we’d done it before. John had been on several royal shoots and so had I, so it wasn’t a question of being awed by the fact that the Queen was in the same room as you, you were very aware of the fact … John Drysdale: We had been to Buckiingham Palace before. We hardly had time to look at her. She was there, we put the film in, exposed it, as many as we could get and then the time came that she moved off and the next one moved in. Ray Horwood: It was fine, it worked out very well. You’ve got to realise that John and I haven’t met for 60 years, wou