Curator Overview of Tudors to Windors: British Royal Portraits.
Tudors to Windsors traces the history of the British monarchy through the outstanding collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. This exhibition highlights major events in British (and world) history from the sixteenth century to the present, examining the ways in which royal portraits were impacted by both the personalities of individual monarchs and wider historical change. Presenting some of the most significant royal portraits, the exhibition will explore five royal dynasties: the Tudors, the Stuarts, the Georgians, the Victorians and the Windsors shedding light on key figures and important historical moments. This exhibition also offers insight into the development of British art including works by the most important artists to have worked in Britain, from Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller to Cecil Beaton and Annie Leibovitz.
To bring these royal figures to life, Bendigo Art Gallery has secured key loans of historic fashion, armour and personal effects which will be featured alongside these magnificent and imposing portraits.
So the exhibition is called Tudors to Windsors, British Royal Portraits. We're looking at these
five incredible dynasties, the Tudors, the Stuarts, the Georgians, the Victorians and the Windsors.
So you get a chance to kind of really travel from the 15th century right through the 21st century
seeing these incredible works of art. Some of these works have actually never travelled
outside the UK before and of course never come as far as Australia. So we're really lucky to
We have the core of this to over 200 works from the National Portrait Gallery. I think people
will be surprised because they'll be the figures who they're really familiar with and who they
perhaps are kind of looking out for but then perhaps other images that would be very unexpected.
There's a suit of armour worn by Henry VIII's son Edward who died aged 15 and the armour was
worn when he was about 12. To see a child's armour is quite incredible and I think it also connects
us to our own humanity and gives us a sense of these people as real people not just historical
figures. So the Tudor dynasty is perhaps one of the most kind of notorious of British history.
Perhaps the most kind of iconic Tudor portrait that's in the show is the Ditchley portrait of
Elizabeth I and what's so interesting within the exhibition you can see is you have works
such as that which are very kind of imposing and over two metres
high and then we have incredibly small miniatures.
Yes so the Stuarts is an interesting period and I think you know we think about Charles I. He was
a really noted art collector. He had a huge collection of art. We've got some wonderful
portraits of Charles II in all his glory but also a whole section on Charles II's mistresses
including a fabulous portrait of Barbara Palmer. So the Georgians kind of ruled over a period of
extraordinary change in Britain by this period. It's the moment where at the end of the Stuart
reign where England and Scotland have come together into one country for the first time
to be ruled by the same sort of power structures. Another of the Georgian portraits that's incredibly
beautiful in terms of its kind of artwork and skill is Lawrence's portrait of the Prince of
later George IV and it's a project for an unfinished unrealised medal and so the painting
itself looks unfinished. He's only focused on the face and it's extraordinary in its kind of painterly
quality. I think there's so many things to get out of this sort of story of Queen Victoria. We have
a beautiful late dress belonging to Queen Victoria from 1897 so just prior to her death. She was only
about four foot eleven so to think about the power that she wielded as this very short-statured
woman is quite fascinating as well. For the Winters that we've got kind of an ever-expanding kind of
iconography because so many of their portraits have been made particularly in photography and
in painting. And then of course the rise of Princess Elizabeth to become Queen after her
father's passing ending with some of the greatest artists of the 20th century who have represented
her like Andy Warhol, Thomas Druth, Annie Leibovitz and Chris Levine working across a whole range of
media. So I guess one of the most special items in the exhibition is a dress worn by Princess Diana.
This very special dress was actually worn during her visit to Australia and New Zealand at that
time and after its exhibition here in Bendigo will actually have to go into storage for a generation
because it's been on display so this is really your last opportunity to see it for a very long
time. The last sort of section of the exhibition really looks at the new generation of the royal
family. We have Paul Emsley's portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge and Nicky Phillips of the
Duke of Cambridge and Duke of Sussex in their uniforms of the household guards. And so we've
got a wonderful portrait of course of of Meghan and Harry from their wedding and of course Kate
and William really continuing that story so it's really lovely to you know to sort of continue
that story not just end it. This exhibition I think offers a really unique opportunity to
encounter 500 years of history and also to get a sense of what portraiture can do as a genre. And
it's just of such a grand scale to see these incredible works, to see them in the flesh
as it were is such a wonderful experience for people to come and see.
