Cecil beaton queen elizabeth ii7/8/2023 The exhibition even includes Princess Elizabeth’s broadcast on Children’s Hour to her fellow children in times of war. It was Beaton’s rapport in the late 1930s with the Queen Mother (then Queen) that led on quite naturally to his being in effect for many years the royal photographer: he began by portraying this Elizabeth as an idealised romantic creature, hardly of this earth, and went on in wartime to show her daughter, the young Princess Elizabeth, in uniform, an image which was on the cover of Life magazine in February 1943. The V&A’s presentation shows us just how much Beaton has made his view of the royals ours. "Producing" is the operative verb: Beaton staged the royals. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother wrote to Beaton in 1963 thanking him for “producing us as really quite nice and real people”. He is firmly of the view that Beaton’s imagery of the royals saved the royals as far as the public were concerned after the debacle of the Abdication. Sir Roy Strong put Beaton firmly back on the map after he had gone out of fashion with a dazzling 1968 compilation at the National Portrait Gallery.
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