Marcus Adams - Royal Photographer The Queen’s Gallery, The Palace of Holyrood. 24th February 2010.

 

I was lucky enough to be invited to the private view of an exhibition of Photographs by Marcus Adams at the Queen’s Gallery, The Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh. The Queen’s Gallery is a purpose built exhibition area for displaying works of art from the Royal Collection and is a very beautiful gallery with a vaulted wooden roof. This exhibition was mounted by Lisa Heighway, who is the assistant curator of the Royal Photographic collection at Windsor Castle and will continue to run until the 5th of June.

This direct link will take you to the official site for the royal collection: http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/default.asp?action=article&ID=37

Marcus Adams had a reputation as the best child photographer of the day in the 1920’s and he was appointed by George V1th and Queen Elizabeth to take pictures of the Royal children. The photographs were taken at Adam’s studio in Mayfair.  Of the one hundred or so photographs, many are of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. Some are of Elizabeth as a mother herself and her two eldest children, Charles and Ann.  Marcus Adams took his first pictures of the Royals in 1926 and continued to do so until the fifties                 

Adams moved away from the tradition formal royal portraits and these photographs have a relaxed, informal feel. http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/media/pdf/biography%20of%20marcus%20adams.pdf

 This particular exhibition contains many unseen photographs of the little princesses and I was struck by the soft grained look of these photographs which almost looked like paintings. They are very beautifully done.

The pictures are hung chronologically.  Particularily poignant are the photographs of Elizabeth taken as a baby, when her mother, the Queen, was on tour abroad. These pictures were sent to her to capture the changes in the baby over the months of their absence and include pictures of Elizabeth’s first tooth, with comments written by her nanny. These pictures really brought it home to me that it must have been very difficult for a young mother to be separated from her young baby at such a crucial time in her development.

The pictures of the young princesses are very happy, normal pictures but it is most remarkable that as the children grow, the young Elizabeth acquires a very serious look as if she is very aware of where her future duty will lie. In contrast, her sister Margaret maintains the happy go lucky look of someone who will not have to take on such an onerous responsibility.

This was a lovely exhibition and the photographs are well worth viewing not only for their historic content but also for the amazing expertise of the photographer.

Further reading:

Heighway, Lisa. 2010. Marcus Adams: Royal Photographer. England: Royal Collection