The portraits that made Queen Elizabeth II a cultural icon

Portraits of monarchs matter. They bind countries together, define how eras are remembered. And the similarities to Queen Elizabeth II are no different – except in their abundance. During her reign as Britain’s longest-serving sovereign, the late Queen was the subject of almost a thousand official portraits. With characteristic grace, she was by all accounts – including Platinum Jubilee photographer Ranald Mackechnie – an amiable, chatty and surprisingly nervous sitter.

Admittedly, the roll call of first-rate names who wanted to portray her, albeit often unofficially, was astounding: Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Lucian Freud, to name but three. And thanks to the mass media, she became, according to the National Portrait Gallery, probably the most portrayed person in British history. As early as 1947, five years before her accession, the News Chronicle called her “undoubtedly the most talked about young woman in the world”.

Beneath the surface of the fathomless sea of ​​images, among the rocks of stiff official photographs and the weeds of the paparazzi’s long-lens shots, are the visual gems by which future generations will remember Elizabeth II. And not just her, as both private person and public monarch, but also the society over which she ruled for seven extraordinary decades. The respect that defined Britain at the beginning of the so-called “new Elizabethan age” has disappeared. Instead, for better or worse, they are more spontaneous and informal, tactile values ​​of the current moment. And this transformation is reflected in the evolution of the Queen’s portraits. So, looking back, which among her phalanx of portraitists succeeded and who failed?

Like, I suspect, millions of others, I will always have the greatest affection and respect for the portraits of the late Queen from the 1950s – even if they are decades before my own birth. This was, if you will, Her late Majesty’s highest “iconic” period, when she appeared as the most glamorous and adventurous royal, by turns movie star and royal goddess. That was the moment when her image – young, bright, commanding – crystallized in her subject’s eye.

Is it any surprise that Cecil Beaton’s magnificent imperial coronation portrait, as sparkling and pristine as a snowflake, was so widely reproduced? Taken inside Buckingham Palace, it set the bar high for every portrait that followed and still provides the classic example of the genre going “all out” so to speak. On an impressive (and self-consciously artificial) backdrop that reproduces the interior of the Henry VII Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey, the 27-year-old Queen is seen in full regalia, wearing the Imperial State Crown and a special dress designed by Norman Hartnell.