Portrait of the Queen

Elizabeth II’s very long reign is the enigmatic story of a shy, unapproachable woman who turned the acceptance of her destiny and the passionate defense of the crown, into a supreme reason for living, as well as an impenetrable screen. With one exception: photography - a companion both on her long journey as a monarch and as part of the iconography of the century. It was the only stage on which, by yielding, even for just a few minutes, to the universal laws of light and the practical demands of a portraitist, the Queen truly revealed herself. In this way she delegated to the great artists who followed her with their lenses over the decades, the task of telling not only the story of her image over time and the memory of the fabulous, sometimes dramatic days in the life of the Windsors, but also of serving as a testimony to the role of the monarchy in a constantly evolving society. Portrait of the Queen is a story about photographs, fragments of a biography arranged non-geometrically and very emotionally, but also of the biographies of the "great creators" of photography intertwining with the Queen’s on an imaginary journey. Each portrait is a piece of a mosaic, capturing just one of her thousand faces, even when that face is the same. If it feels like we have always known her - or rather, always "seen" her - it is also thanks to the attraction of her photo portraits which, while maintaining an aura of timelessness, have over time become iconic worldwide. Her way of presenting herself, of directing a photogenic smile to us alone, is marked by the grace of her portraits, as if Elisabeth, while not letting any emotion show, allowed the camera to reveal the invisible nuances of her personality. A long chapter of history unfolds before the image of Elizabeth II - the story of a life with a unique script. Over seventy years of reign have been examined - with discretion - through the lenses of amazing photographers. From the very first portraits in Marcus Adams’ plain, innocent style, to the more formal sophistication shown by Cecil Beaton, Tony Armstrong-Jones, photographer and brother-in-law, who became Lord Snowdon, Jousuf Karsh, and the work of superstars such as contemporary photographers Brian Aris, Jason Bell, Julian Calder, David Montgomery and John Swannell, up to the 2000s, when Chris Levine definitively celebrated the Queen’s image with her eyes closed.