Royal Profile - Dorothy Wilding

According to the National Portrait Gallery, Dorthy Wilding "is best known for her brightly lit linear compositions photographed in high key lighting against a white background." Known as the 'Wilding Look'. She was the first female appointed as the official royal photographer for the 1937 Coronation. However, her royal legacy would be one portrait known to philatelists the world over.

Dorothy Frances Edith Wilding was born on January 10, 1893 near Gloucestershire. She was the last child in a family of 10 and at the age of four she was taken to be raised by a childless aunt and uncle in Cheltenham. Her initial ambition was to be an actress but her uncle disapproved. Fiercely independent she saved up money and at sixteen bought her first camera. She taught herself the art of photography, convincing her family to let her move to London where she began her photographic career as an apprentice to Bond Street photographer Marian Neilson.

In 1915 she had saved up enough money (£60) to lease her own photo studio. Unable to afford a proper lighting set up, she took her portraits in daylight. She gained success and opened a larger studio, moving her business to Bond Street, In 1929 she had her first royal sitting when she photographed 17 year old Prince George, later Duke of Kent. Her royal portraits continued with a session featuring Wallis Simpson. The Prince of Wales (later the Duke of Windsor) was so impressed with the photographs that he posed for her himself.

In January 1937 She received a summons to Buckingham Palace to photograph the new Queen Elizabeth. During the session the new King entered the room dressed in his uniform of Admiral of the Fleet. Wilding suggested ‘Your Majesty, don’t you think The Queen looks a little lonely standing there without you? If you joined her, I could make such a lovely portrait of you both’. The King replied: ‘Why not?’ The portrait was used on a Coronation issue stamp and would later be adapted for a Silver Wedding Stamp in 1948. Her portraits of the King were also used on currency and banknotes.

She had mistakenly married young, but met her second husband, Rufus Leighton-Pearce, when he created a revolutionary art deco design for her studio. They would marry some years later after his divorce from an alcoholic wife. With her striking confidence she more than held her own in the male dominated industry. An anecdote from photographer Tom Hustler who worked in her studio, recalled a meeting between Dorothy and Antony Armstrong Jones where he remarked that he preferred natural light to studio work, she replied, "Mr Jones, in my studio I can put the sun where I want it."

She opened her New York Studio around this time and commuted between New York and London by ocean liner. She photographed some of the most famous people of her day and she was particularly known for her "Girls in Pearls" photographs that appeared in society magazines. In 1940, a German bomb destroyed her London studio. She took her ailing husband to New York. After he died she dedicated much her time to building her US business. She was awarded the Royal Warrant in 1943, creating royal portraits for British and Commonwealth stamps.

Her most famous work was the portrait of Elizabeth II used for the new Queen's stamps - now known by philatelists as the Wilding series. The photograph is known as 'The Dorothy Wilding Portrait'. The session took place at Clarence House on February 26, 1952, three weeks after the death of King George VI. All British definitive stamps bore this Wilding portrait from 1952 until 1967. Her work also appeared on many Commonwealth stamps.

Her working relationship with the royal family continued until 1958 when she sold her Bond Street Studio. Her New York Studio had closed in 1957. Her autobiography In Pursuit of Perfection was published in 1958.

After a long illness, she died in a nursing home on February 9th, 1976. Her surviving archives were presented to the National Portrait Gallery by her sister Mrs Susan Morton in the same year.

© Marilyn Braun 2008

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Royal Profile: Cecil Beaton

When Cecil Beaton visited a clairvoyant in 1926, she told him that he would have a lot to do with royalty. At the time he could not have realized just how prophetic that statement would be.

Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was born in London on January 14, 1904, the grandson of a blacksmith, and the eldest son of a prosperous timber merchant. He had three siblings: Reginald (Reggie) born 1905, Nancy (born 1909) and Barbara (Baba) born 1912. When he was 11, his grandmother bought him his first camera, which he taught himself the basics of photography, using his mother and sisters as his first models. When he became more proficient he sent his photographs off to London society magazines, writing under a pen name but recommending the work of 'Beaton'.

Raised in Hampstead, he attended Heath Mount School, London where he felt like an outsider much of the time. It wasn't until he attended Harrow School that he hit his stride and involved himself in the theatre, designing sets, sewing costumes and performing. Although not academically inclined, to please his parents he attended St. Thomas' College, Cambridge, studying history, art and architecture. He continued to work on his photography in his homemade studio, sending photographs to the major fashion magazines. Through his university contacts he was commissioned to photograph the Duchess of Amalfi. The photograph, bought and printed by Vogue, gave him his first ever published work.

In 1925 he left Cambridge without a degree and his father gave him a job in his office as a clerk. He lasted eight days. Bringing along his camera, he spent his time attending society parties, taking photographs of the elite and London glitterati. These photographs formed his first exhibition in 1927. Shortly afterwards he set up his own studio, establishing himself as London's definative society photographer. As his success grew he set his sights on the glamour of Hollywood, eventually photographing Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Greta Garbo, amongst others.

During the Second World War he worked for the British government and military as official photographer and his images of the devastation were later published in the book Winged Squadrons (1942). In addition to his flourishing photographic career, he wrote several books, worked as an illustrator and set designer for various theatrical productions; winning four Tony awards. For his work in film, he won two Academy Awards for costume design for Gigi in 1958 and My Fair Lady in 1964. His black and white costumes for My Fair Lady were inspired by the 1910 Black Ascot following the death of King Edward VII.

He would photograph the royal family for fifty years, starting in 1930 with Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria. In his royal photographs he was greatly inspired by painters Franz Xaver Winterhalter and Thomas Gainsborough and used blow-ups of their paintings as backdrops for some of his most successful and romantic portraits of Queen Elizabeth and the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. These portraits did much to restore the image of the monarchy after the Abdication in 1936, particularly transforming the image of Elizabeth, Duchess of York from minor royal into regal personage when she became Queen. Some of his most notable photographs included the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1937, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, as well as the first official photos of the infants Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Beaton was also influenced by photographers Marcus Adams and Bertram Park and in the 1950's and 1960's his photographs took on a more informal style, inspired by Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.

In 1957 he was became a Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1960 he was made a Chevalier, Legion of Honor, and he was knighted in 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1974, and although one side of his body would be permanently paralyzed, he taught himself to write and draw with his left hand and had his cameras adapted. However his health would remain damaged and he died in Broadchalke, Wiltshire, 18 January 1980.

© Marilyn Braun 2006