Imaging the Filmic Gloriana / The Mask of Elizabeth
Fortyfivedownstairs, 25 July - 5 August 2017
These purse-sized gouache miniature portraits are based on movie stills of actors playing Elizabeth I, the bastard, rebel spinster, Tower of London detainee, survivor of both sexual and domestic abuse, the beneficiary of privilege and victim of adversity. They contemplate how dramaturges and wardrobe departments have represented and misrepresented this feminist icon. They are a meditations on how one’s story can get changed by who is telling it..
Top L-R: All portraits gouache on 13cm x 8cm card. Housed in ornamental resin frames.
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth 1998
Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R BBC 1971
Glenda Jackson in Mary Queen of Scots The Virgin Queen 1971
Laoise Murray in Young Elizabeth, The Tudors Season 4, 2010
Jean Simmons in Young Bess 1953
Joely Richardson in Anonymous 2011
Ann-Marie Duff in The Virgin Queen 2006
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth the Golden Age 2007
Vanessa Redgrave in Anonymous 2011
Judy Dench in Shakespeare in Love 1998
Diana D’Aquila in Elizabeth Rex 2004
Helen Mirren in Elizabeth 1 HBO miniseries 2005
Quentin Crisp in Orlando 1993
Betty Davis in The Virgin Queen 1955
Flora Robinson with Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawke 1940
Kate Blanchett
Betty Davis and Errol Flynn in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex 1939
Laoise Miurray
Quentin Crisp
Helen Mirren
Betty Davis