Watercolours
and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
Until September 25; The Queens Gallery, Edinburgh
Its not the catchiest of exhibition titles, but Watercolours
And Drawings From The Collection Of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
does exactly what it says on the tin. Although she spent nearly 100
years accumulating 1200 pictures, this is the first time an exhibition
has been mounted from the late monarchs collection.
You might expect to experience something like the tedium of Victoria
and Alberts watercolours, commissioned to document every step
of their every journey. You might imagine that the Queen Mother would
have continued in that tradition of staid, brown, heavily-worked souvenirs.
You would be wrong. There are, of course, the obligatory leafy landscapes
and grey-stoned residences, but there are also some cracking surprises.
The Queen Mother clearly had an eye for a picture, and particularly
for a bright, cheerful play of colour. Lionel Bulmers watercolour,
The Lamp, was hardly avant garde in the 1960s, but its flattened composition
is a delight. Bottles and cups dance like skaters on an ice-rink table-top,
their outlines traced as if in a cartoon.
In fact the Queen Mother appears to have been rather partial to cartoony
styles, and certainly didnt suffer from artistic snobbery. While
waxy kids crayons and felt tipped pens still struggle to be
taken seriously today, they were legitimate enough for her. A few
actual cartoons are also on display, by Oscar Wildes contemporary,
Max Beerbolm. His unflattering caricatures of King Edward VII caused
public outrage in 1923, and despite the scandal, Queen Elizabeth (as
she was then) was delighted to buy them in 1943.
In fact, Elizabeth took her role as patron of the arts most seriously
during those years of the second world war. Having famously refused
to move out of London during the Blitz, she made frequent visits to
art exhibitions and charity auctions, buying works to cheer up the
artists as well as her walls. Kenneth Clark, as Chairman of the War
Artists Advisory Committee, did much to promote a lively generation
of new artists to the receptive monarch.
Two beautiful colour woodcuts in the exhibition, by the Scottish artist
Elizabeth Keith, are Japanese in style and content. It is indicative
of the Queen Mothers awareness of her public role that she bought
the woodcuts, during a publicised visit to the artists show
in 1937, when anti-Japanese feeling was running high. In that one
move she resurrected the unfortunate artists career.
At a charity auction in 1943 The Queen Mother bought a stunning pastel
drawing by war artist William Dring. If Degas were to have been a
war artist aboard a naval vessel, he might have done something similar.
The two sleeping sailors are arranged symmetrically on the near-vertical
wooden boards like off-duty ballet dancers.
A less adventurous group of drawings hangs nearby, its significance
more historical than artistic. Afraid that Windsor Castle might not
survive the war, the Queen Mother commissioned architectural draughtsman,
John Piper, to record the building from every possible angle. What
was not in the brief was the stormy black weather which the artist
controversially inserted into every single scene, dismissing the queens
optimistic request that he might try a spring day.
This collection of pictures is in tune with the Queen Mother as she
has been portrayed to us. Rooted in tradition, there is a strong moral
backbone, and a love of fun and colour. Even the most war-torn buildings
are pleasing to the eye, and uplifting to the spirits. But never,
never does it stray beyond the bounds of propriety. How perfectly
appropriate.
Catrìona
Black, Sunday Herald 03.04.05