The King and Queen have toured a new exhibition of more than 70 artworks from the monarch’s private collection, which opens to the public at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.
The King’s Tour Artists display in the Palace ballroom celebrates four decades of artists joining Charles on overseas tours and includes one of His Majesty’s own watercolours, painted alongside John Ward, the first artist he invited to join him on tour, on the deck of the Royal Yacht Britannia during a visit to Italy in May 1985.
The works, by 43 different artists, were chosen by the King from more than 300 in his private collection.
They chart the monarch’s visits to 95 countries and regions, ending with an iPad painting by Fraser Scarfe of the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, which Charles visited in April this year.
© Getty ImagesCharles speaking with Phillip Butah
“His Majesty is obviously a keen watercolour artist and a keen patron of the arts, so the exhibition celebrates His Majesty as a patron of the arts, but includes that representation of him working alongside a tour artist,” says Kate Heard, senior curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust. “On those early tours, His Majesty would often paint alongside those artists that were taken with him. As the pace of royal tours has increased, things have got busier. There’s then less opportunity to do that.”
The exhibition and an accompanying book, The Art of Royal Travel: Journeys with The King, was the idea of the Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Steward of the Royal Household and personal secretary to the King and Queen.
© Getty ImagesThe Queen speaking to Toby Ward
He spent three months tracking down all of the artworks so the King could choose which to include, even finding one now on display in a downstairs toilet at Birkhall, the monarch’s private home near Balmoral.
“We went round every residence that had been occupied by the Prince of Wales, Highgrove, Birkhall, Sandringham, Clarence House, went through every single room,” he tells HELLO!.
“I hope by the end of this exhibition what the King has done [to support artists] will be more widely known, because being a modest person, he said, ‘do you think people will really be interested?’ It’s a very well-established tradition now, much valued by the artists.”
© Getty ImagesThe King speaking with Claudette Johnson
“Tour artists are given a very broad brief,” Kate adds. “They’re not asked to show particular things. There are no requirements that they depict particular events or country or people. They are simply asked to use the tour to inspire them in whatever way they feel appropriate.
“So each work you see is the artist’s own impression of the tour, their own impression of the country that they visited. And as you can see, that’s resulted in an incredibly rich and varied collection.”
© Getty ImagesArtist Tom Halifax holds a painting which he gave to King Charles
Among the paintings on display is of a Buffalo Leap in Canada, painted in 2001 by Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis using watercolours mixed with lager. The artist, who normally works in egg tempera, which involves mixing pigment with egg yolk, was forced to improvise after a companion’s Labrador ate her supply of eggs.
“I had to do a quick rethink,” she says in The Art of Royal Travel. “I had some watercolours with me, but the dog had also knocked over the water, so, in the end, I had to use lager.”
LISTEN: Prince William and Princess Kate’s Scottish summer plans revealed
ROYAL FAN? JOIN THE CLUB
Welcome to The HELLO! Royal Club, where thousands of royal fans like you get to delve deeper into the wonderful world of royalty every day. Want to join them? Just click the button below for a list of club benefits and joining information.