• Small font

• Artist
  Cecil Beaton
• Title
  Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace
• Date of Production
  2 June 1953
• Medium
  Photograph
• Dimensions
• Credit Details
  Copyright V&A

Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration

Celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee at the Art Gallery of Ballarat with an exhibition of vintage prints from London's V&A taken by royal photographer, Sir Cecil Beaton.

This special exhibition of nearly 100 portraits taken by Beaton over a period of 30 years depicts Elizabeth in her roles as princess, monarch and mother and will include a number of rarely-seen photographs alongside extracts from Beaton's personal diaries and letters.

Beaton's royal portraits were among the most widely published photos of the 20th century. The exhibition explores Beaton's long relationship with Elizabeth, who was a teenage princess when he first photographed her in 1942 to tender images of the Queen with her young children and official portraits that convey the magnitude of her role as Britain's monarch and centrepiece of the Commonwealth.

It will show elegant and highly-staged photographs alongside informal moments of the royal family at home, interspersed with film and radio footage from the time and charts the shift in Beaton's style from early rococo-inspired portraits to the starker images of the 1960s.

Extracts from Beaton's diaries and letters will reveal insights into the working practice of a royal sitting, from the intense planning beforehand to conversations with the Queen and the pressures of achieving the perfect portrait.

Admission: Adult $12, Concession $8, Child and Gallery Member Free.

Lunch packages at Sweet Decadence: $28.50 and Concession $25.50 - includes exhibition entry.

Morning and afternoon tea packages: $17 and Concession $14 includes exhibition entry.

Exhibition organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London