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