It’s a cosy domestic scene: over a family breakfast table, a middle-aged matriarch regales her husband and children with a silly anecdote. The elder son laughs along heartily. His teenage sister seems a little bored.
But the ordinariness ends there. The homely scene is from the 1969 fly-on-the-wall documentary, Royal Family, by BBC film-maker Richard Cawston, whose informal footage of the Queen visiting a corner shop and Prince Philip barbecuing sausages is seen as a turning point in Elizabeth II’s reign – the first time people had seen the real woman behind the carefully controlled royal facade.
Despite being a huge success at the time, the documentary was withdrawn by Buckingham Palace soon after it was screened amid rumours that the Queen was unhappy about how it had eroded the Windsor family’s mystique.
Since then, she has rarely been heard talking spontaneously and has never granted an interview to the public – a reticence often seen as one of the reasons behind her enduring popularity.
But now her majesty’s loyal subjects are getting a second chance to see Elizabeth II at her most informal. A clip – albeit only 90 seconds long – from the programme is touring the UK as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Queen: Art and Image exhibition.
The exhibition is one of many this year with a royal flavour. All across the UK, museums, galleries and heritage sites are taking their own look at the Queen’s 60-year reign to mark the 2012 Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Tourism bodies hope the festivities will generate millions of pounds for the economy and shine an international spotlight on the UK’s rich heritage ahead of the London Olympics.
Predictably, institutions with a royal connection are running jam-packed programmes of events and exhibitions, many timed to coincide with the extended Jubilee bank holiday weekend on 2-5 June.
Inspired by the anniversary, Buckingham Palace is polishing up some of its shiniest trinkets, including the Girls of Great Britain tiara; Fabergé eggs gifted by the Russian aristocracy; and diamonds worn by Elizabeth II at her 1953 coronation ceremony.
Venues including Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery and Edinburgh’s Holyroodhouse are hosting a tour of Leonardo da Vinci sketches from the Royal Collection. Kensington Palace is reopening this month following a £12m renovation and plans to look at the 1897 Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria, the only other British monarch to reach the 60-year milestone.
Elsewhere, the Victoria and Albert Museum is displaying portraits of the Queen by photographer Cecil Beaton, showing her transition from glamorous young princess to wife, mother and head of state.
It’s no surprise that a strong celebratory tone runs through these particular events, but what gives greater pause for thought is the number of publicly funded bodies and institutions with no royal patronage that have followed suit, running reverential tributes to commemorate the occasion.
No one likes to spoil a good party, but some have started questioning why, in spite of factors such as growing republicanism in Commonwealth countries and around 20% of Brits themselves opposing the monarchy, very few institutions have used the moment as an opportunity to re-examine the Queen’s role in more objective detail. Enquiries by Museums Journal uncovered just a few exhibitions that were giving space to different points of view.
Last month, the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic took issue with one museum’s promotional material for a planned jubilee exhibition exploring people’s “enduring affection” for the monarch.
“Most [exhibitions] just seem to have jumped on the bandwagon,” says Republic’s chief executive Graham Smith. “They assume that everyone wants a celebration and that the Queen is regarded with universal love and affection, when that’s simply not true.”
Smith says Republic is not pushing for outright anti-monarchist sentiment to take over exhibitions, but is instead asking why, as recipients of public funding, some museums are not fulfilling their legal obligation to reflect and record viewpoints from both sides.
“They wouldn’t get away with doing a celebration of the anniversary of the Conservative party, for example,” says Smith. “They would have to reflect on the good and the bad.”
So why are museums shying away from more rounded interpretations of the Queen’s reign? Some don’t want to appear disrespectful to the many visitors who continue to hold the monarch in high esteem.
Others say they lack the resources, admitting that it can be difficult to gather more radical material amid all the commemorative mugs.
Many just want to tap into the general celebratory mood. “Our exhibition is all about parties, celebrations, pomp and splendour,” says Sean Baggaley, curator of Gallery Oldham’s social history exhibition, A Right Royal Do, which opened last month.
“We’re telling local stories and looking at the way the town has marked jubilees over the past 100 years. We’re also marking the gallery’s 10th birthday and having a big street party that weekend.”
Displays include a photographic archive of royal visits, local reminiscences and objects such as a key that snapped off in the lock when the Queen Mother was officially opening the town’s civil centre in 1977. There will also be opportunities for children to make bunting and paper chains.
Although the exhibition doesn’t raise any criticism, says Baggaley, some of the exhibits tell their own story about changing attitudes to the monarchy. “The photos show that more recent jubilee celebrations are noticeably less well-attended,” he says.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with Oldham’s approach. But David Anderson, the director general of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (NMW), thinks the lack of diverse views on offer, particularly in England, is indicative of a deeper issue.
“The only UK nation lacking a national museum through which it can reflect critically on its own past is England,” he says. Anderson believes that this could make it more difficult for museums there to take the lead and “create space” for an informed debate on issues such as the monarchy. “England is often hostile to these articulations,” he adds.
Devolution has enabled NMW to reflect a greater diversity of opinion in its displays, says Anderson. “One can see a shift in the last 10 years. Where we would once have been neutral, there’s now an increasing trend to make explicit that there are different views.”
Anderson has seen those opposing views played out close to home. National Museum Cardiff is currently hosting the Queen: Art and Image tour, but has chosen to display a number of objects from its own collections alongside to add a Welsh voice to the London blockbuster. “We couldn’t have got away with not doing it like that,” says Anderson.
The exhibition’s arrival in the Welsh capital provoked strong responses from people, both for and against the monarchy. “We’ve had some very explicit graffiti on our posters around Cardiff. None of us has ever seen anything like this before,” he says.
The show, which is pulling in double the average number of daily visits, marries official portraiture of the Queen by Lucian Freud, Annie Leibovitz and others with press images and more abstract depictions. But by far the greatest interest has been in the Welsh objects, says Anderson.
That display spans scenes of early adulation for the royal family through to large-scale protest as nationalism grew in the country, offering an insight into social change. A T-shirt from a 1996 student demonstration which succeeded in forcing Elizabeth II to cancel a visit to Aberystwyth reads “Twll Tin y Cwin” – Up Yours Queen.
“We’ve had loads of people asking why it’s not on sale in the shop,” says Anderson. The phrase even became a hashtag on Twitter under which locals reminisced about their part in the Aberystwyth protests.
It seems unlikely that such derogatory slogans would be welcome in many English museums, although one institution has more leeway than most.
“We didn’t set out to rubbish the Queen but we’re fortunate in that we can ask some questions about [her] in the art form that we’re working with,” says Anita O’Brien, curator of the Cartoon Museum, London, which is staging a jubilee exhibition called Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits.
“People are more accepting of the material because they know that’s what cartoons do. They’re more open to the possibility that it might be less than adulatory, whereas if they went to another exhibition it might seem disrespectful,” O’Brien says.
The exhibition draws together caricatures of the Queen created over her lifetime by some of the UK’s most scathing cartoonists, such as Ralph Steadman at Private Eye and the Guardian’s Martin Rowson and Steve Bell.
The pictures cover controversial issues such as income tax (which the Queen voluntarily started paying in 1992) and the royal response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
According to O’Brien, the images show the Queen not just as an individual but as a symbol reflecting the changes in UK society and the Commonwealth. One of the most recent cartoons depicts a green-clad monarch slurping on a pint of Guinness to mark her historic visit to the Irish Republic last year.
Together they offer a fascinating glimpse into recent British history. “When the Queen first came to the throne, the royal family were seen as much closer to God,” says O’Brien. Up until the time of that infamous 1969 documentary, she says, the Windsors were rarely caricatured at all.
Just two decades later, however, after marital breakdowns and tabloid exposes, Nicholas Garland’s Endangered Species cartoon shows them as animals on the brink of extinction.
But even in cartoon form, the images are rarely unkind to the monarch herself, according to O’Brien. “There is a difference in cartoons which mostly relate to the Queen, which on balance remain affectionate, and the ones which reflect more on the whole family,” she says.
Perhaps this less reverential take on the royals as a whole indicates there will be greater space for alternative viewpoints when the next generation ascends the throne. In the meantime, the range of Diamond Jubilee exhibitions should at the very least offer visitors a chance for some lighthearted royal escapism amid the economic gloom.
“Parallel the national economic outlook with the start of the Queen’s reign,” says Gallery Oldham’s Baggaley. “It’s the same backdrop – and the same excuse for a party.”
Geraldine Kendall is a freelance journalist
Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits of the Queen
Cartoon Museum, London
1 February–8 April
A display of newspaper caricatures revealing the changing face of Elizabeth II and the UK over the past 60 years.
The Queen: Art and Image
National Museum Cardiff
4 February–29 April
National Portrait Gallery, London
17 May–21 October
60 images from the Queen’s 60-year reign, looking at how she has been portrayed through painting, photography and press images (see review).
Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
8 February–22 April
Portraits of the Queen by royal photographer Cecil Beaton depicting her roles as princess, mother and monarch.
A Right Royal Do
Gallery Oldham
31 March–8 July
A look back at Oldham’s royal celebrations through the years, including photos of royal visits to the town, street parties and firework displays for previous jubilees and coronations.
Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames
National Maritime Museum, London
27 April–9 September
Guest curator David Starkey tells the varied history of how the Thames was used as Britain’s royal river over half a millennium of pageantry.
Fashion and the Flag
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
1 May–25 November
An exhibition featuring fashions that use the Union Jack as a fabric or design inspiration.
At Home with the Queen
Museum of London
24 May–28 October
Photographs of a diverse range of Londoners at home with their favourite pieces of royal memorabilia, and the stories behind the objects.
Jubilee: A View From the Crowd
Kensington Palace, London
25 May–4 November
An exploration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897 from the point of view of those who celebrated it, from duchesses to newspaper sellers.
But the ordinariness ends there. The homely scene is from the 1969 fly-on-the-wall documentary, Royal Family, by BBC film-maker Richard Cawston, whose informal footage of the Queen visiting a corner shop and Prince Philip barbecuing sausages is seen as a turning point in Elizabeth II’s reign – the first time people had seen the real woman behind the carefully controlled royal facade.
Despite being a huge success at the time, the documentary was withdrawn by Buckingham Palace soon after it was screened amid rumours that the Queen was unhappy about how it had eroded the Windsor family’s mystique.
Since then, she has rarely been heard talking spontaneously and has never granted an interview to the public – a reticence often seen as one of the reasons behind her enduring popularity.
But now her majesty’s loyal subjects are getting a second chance to see Elizabeth II at her most informal. A clip – albeit only 90 seconds long – from the programme is touring the UK as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Queen: Art and Image exhibition.
The exhibition is one of many this year with a royal flavour. All across the UK, museums, galleries and heritage sites are taking their own look at the Queen’s 60-year reign to mark the 2012 Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Tourism bodies hope the festivities will generate millions of pounds for the economy and shine an international spotlight on the UK’s rich heritage ahead of the London Olympics.
Predictably, institutions with a royal connection are running jam-packed programmes of events and exhibitions, many timed to coincide with the extended Jubilee bank holiday weekend on 2-5 June.
Inspired by the anniversary, Buckingham Palace is polishing up some of its shiniest trinkets, including the Girls of Great Britain tiara; Fabergé eggs gifted by the Russian aristocracy; and diamonds worn by Elizabeth II at her 1953 coronation ceremony.
Venues including Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery and Edinburgh’s Holyroodhouse are hosting a tour of Leonardo da Vinci sketches from the Royal Collection. Kensington Palace is reopening this month following a £12m renovation and plans to look at the 1897 Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria, the only other British monarch to reach the 60-year milestone.
Elsewhere, the Victoria and Albert Museum is displaying portraits of the Queen by photographer Cecil Beaton, showing her transition from glamorous young princess to wife, mother and head of state.
It’s no surprise that a strong celebratory tone runs through these particular events, but what gives greater pause for thought is the number of publicly funded bodies and institutions with no royal patronage that have followed suit, running reverential tributes to commemorate the occasion.
No one likes to spoil a good party, but some have started questioning why, in spite of factors such as growing republicanism in Commonwealth countries and around 20% of Brits themselves opposing the monarchy, very few institutions have used the moment as an opportunity to re-examine the Queen’s role in more objective detail. Enquiries by Museums Journal uncovered just a few exhibitions that were giving space to different points of view.
Last month, the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic took issue with one museum’s promotional material for a planned jubilee exhibition exploring people’s “enduring affection” for the monarch.
“Most [exhibitions] just seem to have jumped on the bandwagon,” says Republic’s chief executive Graham Smith. “They assume that everyone wants a celebration and that the Queen is regarded with universal love and affection, when that’s simply not true.”
Smith says Republic is not pushing for outright anti-monarchist sentiment to take over exhibitions, but is instead asking why, as recipients of public funding, some museums are not fulfilling their legal obligation to reflect and record viewpoints from both sides.
“They wouldn’t get away with doing a celebration of the anniversary of the Conservative party, for example,” says Smith. “They would have to reflect on the good and the bad.”
So why are museums shying away from more rounded interpretations of the Queen’s reign? Some don’t want to appear disrespectful to the many visitors who continue to hold the monarch in high esteem.
Others say they lack the resources, admitting that it can be difficult to gather more radical material amid all the commemorative mugs.
Many just want to tap into the general celebratory mood. “Our exhibition is all about parties, celebrations, pomp and splendour,” says Sean Baggaley, curator of Gallery Oldham’s social history exhibition, A Right Royal Do, which opened last month.
“We’re telling local stories and looking at the way the town has marked jubilees over the past 100 years. We’re also marking the gallery’s 10th birthday and having a big street party that weekend.”
Displays include a photographic archive of royal visits, local reminiscences and objects such as a key that snapped off in the lock when the Queen Mother was officially opening the town’s civil centre in 1977. There will also be opportunities for children to make bunting and paper chains.
Although the exhibition doesn’t raise any criticism, says Baggaley, some of the exhibits tell their own story about changing attitudes to the monarchy. “The photos show that more recent jubilee celebrations are noticeably less well-attended,” he says.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with Oldham’s approach. But David Anderson, the director general of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (NMW), thinks the lack of diverse views on offer, particularly in England, is indicative of a deeper issue.
“The only UK nation lacking a national museum through which it can reflect critically on its own past is England,” he says. Anderson believes that this could make it more difficult for museums there to take the lead and “create space” for an informed debate on issues such as the monarchy. “England is often hostile to these articulations,” he adds.
Devolution has enabled NMW to reflect a greater diversity of opinion in its displays, says Anderson. “One can see a shift in the last 10 years. Where we would once have been neutral, there’s now an increasing trend to make explicit that there are different views.”
Anderson has seen those opposing views played out close to home. National Museum Cardiff is currently hosting the Queen: Art and Image tour, but has chosen to display a number of objects from its own collections alongside to add a Welsh voice to the London blockbuster. “We couldn’t have got away with not doing it like that,” says Anderson.
The exhibition’s arrival in the Welsh capital provoked strong responses from people, both for and against the monarchy. “We’ve had some very explicit graffiti on our posters around Cardiff. None of us has ever seen anything like this before,” he says.
The show, which is pulling in double the average number of daily visits, marries official portraiture of the Queen by Lucian Freud, Annie Leibovitz and others with press images and more abstract depictions. But by far the greatest interest has been in the Welsh objects, says Anderson.
That display spans scenes of early adulation for the royal family through to large-scale protest as nationalism grew in the country, offering an insight into social change. A T-shirt from a 1996 student demonstration which succeeded in forcing Elizabeth II to cancel a visit to Aberystwyth reads “Twll Tin y Cwin” – Up Yours Queen.
“We’ve had loads of people asking why it’s not on sale in the shop,” says Anderson. The phrase even became a hashtag on Twitter under which locals reminisced about their part in the Aberystwyth protests.
It seems unlikely that such derogatory slogans would be welcome in many English museums, although one institution has more leeway than most.
“We didn’t set out to rubbish the Queen but we’re fortunate in that we can ask some questions about [her] in the art form that we’re working with,” says Anita O’Brien, curator of the Cartoon Museum, London, which is staging a jubilee exhibition called Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits.
“People are more accepting of the material because they know that’s what cartoons do. They’re more open to the possibility that it might be less than adulatory, whereas if they went to another exhibition it might seem disrespectful,” O’Brien says.
The exhibition draws together caricatures of the Queen created over her lifetime by some of the UK’s most scathing cartoonists, such as Ralph Steadman at Private Eye and the Guardian’s Martin Rowson and Steve Bell.
The pictures cover controversial issues such as income tax (which the Queen voluntarily started paying in 1992) and the royal response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
According to O’Brien, the images show the Queen not just as an individual but as a symbol reflecting the changes in UK society and the Commonwealth. One of the most recent cartoons depicts a green-clad monarch slurping on a pint of Guinness to mark her historic visit to the Irish Republic last year.
Together they offer a fascinating glimpse into recent British history. “When the Queen first came to the throne, the royal family were seen as much closer to God,” says O’Brien. Up until the time of that infamous 1969 documentary, she says, the Windsors were rarely caricatured at all.
Just two decades later, however, after marital breakdowns and tabloid exposes, Nicholas Garland’s Endangered Species cartoon shows them as animals on the brink of extinction.
But even in cartoon form, the images are rarely unkind to the monarch herself, according to O’Brien. “There is a difference in cartoons which mostly relate to the Queen, which on balance remain affectionate, and the ones which reflect more on the whole family,” she says.
Perhaps this less reverential take on the royals as a whole indicates there will be greater space for alternative viewpoints when the next generation ascends the throne. In the meantime, the range of Diamond Jubilee exhibitions should at the very least offer visitors a chance for some lighthearted royal escapism amid the economic gloom.
“Parallel the national economic outlook with the start of the Queen’s reign,” says Gallery Oldham’s Baggaley. “It’s the same backdrop – and the same excuse for a party.”
Geraldine Kendall is a freelance journalist
A royal knees-up
Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits of the Queen
Cartoon Museum, London
1 February–8 April
A display of newspaper caricatures revealing the changing face of Elizabeth II and the UK over the past 60 years.
The Queen: Art and Image
National Museum Cardiff
4 February–29 April
National Portrait Gallery, London
17 May–21 October
60 images from the Queen’s 60-year reign, looking at how she has been portrayed through painting, photography and press images (see review).
Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
8 February–22 April
Portraits of the Queen by royal photographer Cecil Beaton depicting her roles as princess, mother and monarch.
A Right Royal Do
Gallery Oldham
31 March–8 July
A look back at Oldham’s royal celebrations through the years, including photos of royal visits to the town, street parties and firework displays for previous jubilees and coronations.
Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames
National Maritime Museum, London
27 April–9 September
Guest curator David Starkey tells the varied history of how the Thames was used as Britain’s royal river over half a millennium of pageantry.
Fashion and the Flag
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
1 May–25 November
An exhibition featuring fashions that use the Union Jack as a fabric or design inspiration.
At Home with the Queen
Museum of London
24 May–28 October
Photographs of a diverse range of Londoners at home with their favourite pieces of royal memorabilia, and the stories behind the objects.
Jubilee: A View From the Crowd
Kensington Palace, London
25 May–4 November
An exploration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897 from the point of view of those who celebrated it, from duchesses to newspaper sellers.
