Detail of Annie Leibovitz photograph
A few nights ago Barbara Walters hosted a special on the Queen of England using footage from a BBC documentary based on a year in the life of the Queen and her family. As it turned out, the most fascinating segment of the two hour special was a photo session with famed American photographer Annie Leibovitz and the Queen Elizabeth. Leibovitz was hired by the Queen to take her official portrait to commemorate the royal visit to Jamestown in celebration of its 400th birthday. The documentary captured a few tense moments when Annie asked the incredulous Queen to remove her tiara because "the garter robe is so.....," Annie paused, and the Queen snapped back "Less dressy? What do you think this?" while angrily pointing to her over-the-top garter robe. This exchanged caused a major controversy in England when the BBC's aired the special. In the BBC version, the camera cuts to the Queen storming out after the exchange with Leibovitz. It then shows the Queen testily saying to her Lady-in-Waiting: "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this thank you very much." Someone at the BBC was actually fired for showing this scene out of context. Barbara Walters got the context correct. The scene with the Queen stomping out and refusing to "change anything" was actually filmed as she was walking INTO the photo session with Leibovitz not OUT of it. British Fleet Street had a field day with the BBC's deception and Barbara Walters wasn't about to repeat the error.
Regardless of all the uproar over the photo session, the actual footage of it was amusing and it showed the Queen acting "human" in front of the cameras for the first time in memory. What is not surprising is that Leibovitz' resulting photographs are stellar. Leave it to Leibovitz, more used to photographing rock stars and actors, to capture the Queen as she has never been captured before. The photographs are moody, regal, dark, atmospheric, and mesmerizing. Rarely has the Queen been successfully shown both artistically and beautifully. Most artistic portraits of Elizabeth to date have been downright hideous. Leibovitz released four pictures from the photo session. Each is fascinating.
Critics of this Leibovitz photograph say the Queen looks like a vampire. Instead, I find it hauntingly beautiful.
Contrast the above Leibovitz picture with this official one taken by the Queen's brother-in-law, Lord Snowdon. Nice, but utterly boring.
Another photo from the Leibovitz sitting. This one was inspired by the portrait of Queen Charlotte that hangs in the National Gallery in London (below). The room is regal enough, but the windows look like they were stolen from a government building.
Queen Charlotte, Leibovitz' inspiration for the photograph shown above.
The third Leibovitz photograph: The Queen in her garter robe, taken
right after she was asked to remove her crown. I love the composition here with the Queen to the right while the room takes up most of the space.
Contrast the above Leibovitz photograph with this one of the Queen in her royal robes taken by Calder. Leibovitz' pictures look like paintings rather than photos. Here, the Queen looks like she was just told a funny joke.
This is a still taken from the documentary at the exact moment Leibovitz asked the Queen to remove her tiara. " Say what????? " She doesn't look too pleased with Leibovitz here! The Queen's main concern was how her hair would look if the tiara was removed.
The final photograph released from the photo shoot. Again, this picture seems more a painting than a photograph. Art critics raved about the photos, while the public was mostly appalled by them.
The Queen painted by Lucian Freud, one of the world's most famous and accomplished artist. The public severely criticized this portrait, but the art critics loved it. The Queen was said to be not amused. Knowing what a Freud looks like, she should not have been surprised. Note: She's wearing her tiara here!
This commissioned portrait painted by Rolf Harris, was more accepted than Freud's and Leibovitz' images of the Queen. I think it's just terrible and doesn't even look like her.
The Queen as a cabbage patch doll by George Condo. Believe it or not, this actually hung in the Tate Museum of Modern Art.
The Queen,at her coronation photographed by the great Cecil Beaton. The contrast between Beaton's style and Leibovitz' style could not be greater.
Royal portraiture from another age: The first Queen Elizabeth painted by Damley.
Which is your favorite image of Queen Elizabeth - and don't say The Cabbage Patch Doll!
I find the first photo absolutely stunning in its elegant simplicity. There is nothing that is superfluous, and nothing can be eliminated. I see a sobering study of power and responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThe Rolf Harris painting resembles Barbara Bush more than Elizabeth. It presents a very "rumpled" interpretation. Nope, this is not a political statement....just an observation.
All in all, Annie L. has found something fresh and new in a subject who has been portrayed a gazillion times. The portraits are testaments of artistic brilliance.
Oops! By the "first portrait", I was referring to the one with the severe cape and landscape background. The actual first portrait in expected regalia...not so much a groundbreaker.
ReplyDeleteSharon - I knew what you meant - that's my favorite one too - she could be Heathcliff's grandmother in that picture. haha!!!!
ReplyDeleteJoni
In Canada we got the BBC version (4 hours?) of the doc last month. The Leibovitz shoot was odd, but then we don't get to see that many photo shoots, when I think about my 91 year old grandmother being asked to sit and pose and then be shuffled off somewhere else, I can't see her enjoying it much.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite images of the Queen are the Leibovitz's photos. As a viewer you can read a lot into them - the solitary nature of the position, the isolation maybe even sadness of a woman born into a certain class and job, the grand life... the window open in one shot could be signallying a symbiotic relationship b/w the establishment and the people, and yet they are lovely and haunting and brooding pictures. It feels as though they are aware that they convey a woman and an institution/position past her/its heyday.
The rooms and the clothes are more interesting than the queen's face. She's just not that interesting a portrait subject. But I do like the backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI love the one of her in the cape. It's not at all a pose you would expect to see the Queen in.
ReplyDeleteIt's refreshing to see her without a hat or her crown or some form of gown on.
It makes her feel a little more human.
I am such an admirer of A.L.'s work. I am loving the second photo too. Definitely art! I do see the vampire likeness you are talking about though! LOL! But a very romantisized version.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the portrait with the cape is my favorite. It is from another era, one of English mystery novels...yet, so contemporary. I love it!
ReplyDeleteI also prefer the portrait with the landscape and the cape. To me, she seems to have more intelligence, and the background is a good reflection of the times we live in, and the troubles her monarchy is struggling to survive. The other Leibowitz photos, as with the Queen Charlotte painting, are lovely, but portray someone removed, lonely and sad. Probably not the image she wants. I also enjoy the Cecil Beaton photo. The Lucien Freud painting is not one of his best, and seems a juvenile trick to me. He doesn't often portray powerful women, although he has painted many powerful men. And the painting of QEI is terrific.
ReplyDeleteLove the last photograph - It looks as if the party's over and HRM is ready to call it a night.
ReplyDeleteThe Freud is dreadful - looks as if he painted it from the bottom of a glass.
Rolf Harris should be deported!
I love the third Liebovitz photo. The light coming from the window is awesome and the negative space to the left just works for me. It reminds me a bit of a John Singer Sargent portrait.
ReplyDeleteI love the Cecil Beaton because it shows her as a young woman, before the weight of the monarchy transformed her. She seems sweet.
Wouldn't you love to just brush her hair out?!!!!! There might be a human under there.
ReplyDeleteI like the photo of the queen when she was young - and that cabbage patch doll comment of yours at the end of the post makes me laugh:-)
ReplyDeleteRight! I'm off into your archives! :-)
Felicity XOX
My mum called me to remind me to watch this...of course, I promptly forgot!! Thanks for the glimpse into part of the feature...one I gather I would have enjoyed very much.
ReplyDeletePersonally, Annie Liebovitz is a rock star in my books...her photos are works of art in more ways than one.
Linda
The Freud portrait captures her aggression, and her near-sexlessness.
ReplyDeleteHi - thanks for all the great comments. I'm taken back by how deep and thought provoking the comments have been. I wasn't expecting any comments at all! I've always loved Leibovitz but these are some of my favorites - just amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks again!
Joni
I've always loved Annie Liebovitz' style, and I have to say that my favorite was the one of her in the robe - beautiful and simple and appropriately regal. I happened to catch the piece myself, and my favorite was that AL wanted her to pose sitting on a horse! HA! I loved seeing the queen's reaction to some very nontraditional requests :)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite is the fifth one down. I bought the book a while back and that is the picture on the cover, loved it then and now. Great post.
ReplyDeleteAnnie is the Queen of the camera! Amazing and I have always loved her photography. Oddly, it has a "Wegman" quality-(the one with the cape)
ReplyDeleteI want to photograph my dog like this!
It must be hard to be Queen! Second oddity is that she reminds me so much of my Grandmother who really looked like her. (She died when I was a wee little one) but she had a certain formality to her as well as a seriousness about life.
Rolf Harris' portrait makes her look like Barbara Cartland /shudder (who was the step-grandmother of Princess Diana of all things).
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite two are #1 the Freud which I adore and the one where the Queen is seated looking out. It seems so sad and introspective. As if she’s looking back on her reign with some regrets and pride.
None of Freud's works are flattering to people at least. She should have realized this. Although Freud did a wonderful painting of Sarah Ferguson's father adn the Queen's husband.
Freud's paintings seem to specialize in the grotesque - look at the Leigh Bowery paintings. the only flattering ones I've ever seen him do were younger children and his beloved dogs.
The garter robe shot is my favorite because of the composition. The remarkable volume of the room and the way the eye is led from the folds of the Queen's cape back to the door where the past of the whole British Empire lies in metaphorical shadow.
ReplyDeleteThe vampire picture while beautiful is less about the monarchy, more a portrait of a woman's difficult endurance in the midst of bleakness and powerlessness (the Queen having little power and merely figurehead status).
AL is amazing. Several yrs ago I saw an exhibit of hers at the Women's Museum in Dallas of large scale prints of her many famous portraits. Abso-fabulous.
Thanks, Joni! Again, laughed out loud and practically snorted coffee through my nose this morning, when I got to your "Say whaaat" comment.
have a good w/end
Libby
As a Canadian I grew up with a picture of The Queen hanging over the blackboard in the front of my classroom. Every morning we had to sing God Save the Queen. That happened everyday for the first 7 years of my schooling. I see there still is that fascination with pictures of the Queen!
ReplyDeleteHer Majesty's reaction to the thought of removing her crown reminds of the famous story behind Winston Churchill's greatest portrait by Karsh -- when the Canadian photographer suddenly grabbed Churchill's cigar -- and then snapped the picture! But her very human reaction that her hair might not look right made me smile! I do like the portrait with the cape -- very dramatic. I always like seeing her in her Barbour jacket with the dogs and a Range Rover!
ReplyDeleteJan at Rosemary Cottage
Fascinating post, Jonie! All A.L. photos are gorgeous. The black cape photo conveys power and responsibility. She looks strong and commanding. It's an unusual portrait of a woman, as there's nothing feminine conveyed - it's more like a portrait of a general going off to war. I think that's what frightened people. In the other 2, she comes across as a real woman with vulnerabilities, engulfed by the trappings of her position. She's portrayed as just a part of the scenario and not the central fixture, so maybe people didn't feel like she was treated with enough respect. But, I think the Rolf Harris painting trivializes her status and position, while A.L.'s actually grant her much more humanity and dignity. Lana
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame the family's ugliness genes keep getting stronger through inbreeding.
ReplyDeleteThose great big windows at Buckingham Palace look to be late Victorian, early Edwardian replacements .. the building was thoroughly modernized about 100 years ago, so the windows were likely very up to date then! I love the "vampire" portrait (she looks regal and the forbidding weather is fabulous) ... and the one by the open windows at BH, which is haunting and poetic. She was so fresh and beautiful when young, not dazzling, but a beauty nonetheless; Princess Margaret, on the other hand, was ravishing in her early 20s, those massive eyes, like an Indian miniature (no pun intended).
ReplyDeleteI tivo'd that program and just watched it 30 minutes ago so it's all fresh in my mind. I'm with you, some of those portraits are hauntingly beautiful. And as soon as I heard about the proposed posing on the horse pic, I knew the Queen would nix it!
ReplyDeleteI like the Annie L's
ReplyDeleteI doubt the windows are "Edwardian"; they were probably replaced in recent years with frames and glass that could withstand bullets (and more). Unlike architectural revisions, security updates like those are never publicized.
ReplyDeleteFor every royal who was decent looking for a few fleeting moments, there is a Princess Anne to compensate.
I love the photo of her gazing out of the balcony window
ReplyDelete....I am so sorry I missed...I had it on my calender and then something upstaged it....I wonder if there's any way to still view it.
I saw that program, too, Joni. Pretty interesting. That Freud portrait really looks more like Prince Philip than the Queen...
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the Barbara Walters show, also.
ReplyDeleteI think that my favorite photos are #4 (the one toward the middle, with the "government building windows"), and #5.
Cote, I have a question.... It has nothing to do with the Queen. In a past post you featured lighting. They were wonderful and quite expensive. Is there a place in Houston area where lighting has "the look" but not the price? Please inform me.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!
I like the last one.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous - regarding the lighting in Houston - please email me at mrballbox329@aol.com
ReplyDeletethanks!
Joni
Thanks for this post - I had never seen any of these shots and Annie's are amazing. I found it hard to pick a favourite although the caped one just nudges out the others for its Wuthering Heights aesthetic. Was never overly interested in Lizzy but these are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI love this post--I've always been fascinated by the Queen and Royal Family, and Annie Leibovitz, for that matter. Combine them all together, and it makes for very interesting company, indeed! My favourite is the Leibovitz portrait inspired by the portrait of Queen Charlotte, although I quite like all the ones released from this sitting.
ReplyDeleteI watched that special and enjoyed that part best too. I like the portrait that mimics Queen Charlotte. The lighting is so stunning. And the reflection in the window hints at the Queen's sometimes stormy relationship with her people. It's just so rich and deep.
ReplyDeleteHugs, Laura
I watched also and thought the exchange was the hi-light of the show. I totally enjoyed it and blogged about it the next day.
ReplyDeleteLeibovitz's photos are stunning... I too like the one with the cape, So strange a place for the subject to be, yet beautiful, I can just see a hunting dog coming up the side.
ReplyDeleteAnd the one at the window is lovely, I love the painting feel.
Ditto Teacats
ReplyDeleteLike seeing her with her dogs, horses and range rover. Cape shot was stunning but she is most happy in a natural setting.Loved the idea that your Blog was on her majesty. What an interesting family
I'm so glad you posted these. I think the one in the Garter Robe is haunting. The storm clouds in the background, the severity of the robe, the look on her face, totally haunting. Not in a vampirish way, but rather as a statement from a reigning queen. Figurehead, notwithstanding, she is an incredibly strong woman who has always performed her duty immpecably for her country. And yet all she has given up is there in her face as well.
ReplyDeleteI think the Queen Charlotte inspired photo is very dramatic and yes. It does have a tinge of sadness to it for me. I am one who admires the Queen for her duty to country, even at the expense of so much.
ReplyDeleteThe first photo, the garter robe is my favorite however. It is hauntingly beautiful...magical.
I love AL's work and am impressed with her results here. The bit with her at the Palace was the best part of the 2 hour documentary!
I have long had a fascination with the Royals, the good, the bad, the awful.
Thanks you once again for a fun and oh so interesting post.
My favorite photo is the 4th photo down - the one of the Queen in a room with stormy skies outside. I've always loved stormy weather in photos - maybe the moodiness or how it makes the photo so dramatic and mysterious. This was a really neat idea for a post! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteKaren
I just stumbled upon your blog about Annie L.'s photo shoot with the Queen. A.L. is a spectacular photographer and I adore her work. I saw a large exhibit of hers in Dallas and became a die-hard fan, but I think this shoot somehow overwhelmed her or she had absolutely NO feeling for her subject. The close-up of the Queen looks like anybody's beautiful, elderly grandmother sitting fully regaled in all the things she brought with her from her past as she waits for the shopping bus to pick her up. The emotion is as though she has already left.
ReplyDeleteThe cape picture seems far too staged, something I rarely feel when Annie really gets going with her subjects. This enures more to the Queen than to Annie. I rather suspect that the Queen was a difficult subject.
Bebe
Bebe - you have to see the documentary about the photo shoot - you can probably google it - it's amazing!!!!!!! The queen was non too pleased with Miss L. haha!! thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteJoni
The "caped" pic. reminded me of an Ozzy Osbourne video (in a "good way"). I particularly like that one ... but then I like them all. (A.L.'s) The cabbage patch one is priceless and don't believe the Queen is above a good laugh..even at herself! After all she's just human! I wish someone would paint a "cabbage-patch" portrait of me :)
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ReplyDeleterolf harris is awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rolf Harris knows what he's doing. I know you might think he's just a popular artist, but he did have a painting accepted at the Royal Academy before he was famous. I think he captured a different aspect from Annie Liebowitz. Her portraits are equally good, although it's like comparing apples with oranges.
ReplyDeleteThe Cecil Beaton photographs are definitely the best by far bar none.
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