Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Art historian and director of the National Portrait Gallery, known for his expertise in Tudor portraiture and definitive work on the Elizabethan era.
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
As an art historian, which came first, the pictures or the history?
The history. I mean, I was uh really began being passionately interested in the history of costume, and that's how I got on to Queen Elizabeth. And I've really been interested in in history and and the history of ideas are the two things which most fascinate me.
Presenter asks
You've been director of the National Portrait Gallery for about two and a half years. Did you set out with sweeping ambitions to reshape the whole presentation of the gallery?
Yes, I did, because I think every gallery goes through, um, as it were, changes periodically, and I wanted very much. To put that gallery on the map, because I think it's it is a a wonderful gallery both for people who live in Britain and and visitors to abroad.
Presenter asks
Is that your idea of priorities, that first must come the glamour and the music and lights to bring in the public?
No, because I mean I think anything um to I mean if one had to make a choice I think the the last comes first because the knowledge and the scholarship. Uh from there everything else stems and you can't do the one without the other. You can't do the folder rolls without the brain the brainwork behind it.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
As an art historian, which came first, the pictures or the history?
Dr Roy Strong
The history. I mean, I was uh really began being passionately interested in the history of costume, and that's how I got on to Queen Elizabeth. And I've really been interested in in history and and the history of ideas are the two things which most fascinate me.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
You were only sixteen when you made a card index of all the known portraits of Queen Elizabeth I.
Dr Roy Strong
Yes, that's quite true. That was the thing I I wanted to write a book about her portraits. I must have been the most difficult and rather tiresome child, and I began going round England looking at these pictures and making this idiotic index. Of course you did write that book eventually. Yes, years later, in nineteen sixty three, out it came.
Presenter
You were at London University. Did you read history? Yes, I read history at Queen Mary College.
Dr Roy Strong
Uh
Presenter
Did you go straight from the University to the National Portrait Gallery?
Dr Roy Strong
No, I didn't. I went on to do research uh and write a thesis on a subject called Elizabethan court pageantry as propaganda. And after reading history a long time, I went to a place called the Warburg Institute, which deals with the history of the classical tradition in the West. And suddenly one found oneself dealing with music and theology and literature and visual art. It was all suddenly the whole floodgate of of of human knowledge was opened in th in those three years. They were wonderful. Mhm. And then you went to the National Portrait Gallery.
Dr Roy Strong
And then in nineteen fifty nine, yes, fifty nine, yes, yeah.
Presenter
Denyline.
Presenter
As assistant director. Assistant keeper. Existential keeper. And you became became director.
Dr Roy Strong
Exactly.
Presenter
Two and a half years ago in sixty seven. At the age of barely thirty, something of a record, I think.
Presenter
Yes, different sort of records.
Presenter
Now your own principal interest has remained since the well, since the age of sixteen in in Tudor portraiture, judging from the books you've read.
Dr Roy Strong
Yes, entirely. I mean, I I've I've always written about the reign of Elizabeth the First and Henry the Eighth.
Dr Roy Strong
Um
Dr Roy Strong
And that has been my main main love, and particularly all the all the pictures of the period, which nobody ever looked at before, other than for a quiet giggle or an antiquarian enthusiasm, whereas I think it is marvellous art as well.
Presenter
Whereas
Dr Roy Strong
Yeah.
Presenter
Now your last book, an an immense two volume work,
Presenter
This would really be the definitive work on that period.
Dr Roy Strong
Well, I think an author should hesitate to say that. Um I suppose some of this in sixty years' time might rewrite it, but uh it did it represents ten years' work.
Presenter
What you gonna follow?
Dr Roy Strong
Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Roy Strong
Well, having massacred the sixteenth century, I am about to embark on the Stuarts at Heaven Help me.
Presenter
You've been director of the National Portrait Gallery for about two and a half years. Now, did you set out with sweeping ambitions to reshape the whole presentation of the gallery?
Dr Roy Strong
Yes, I did, because I think every gallery goes through, um, as it were, changes periodically, and I wanted very much.
Dr Roy Strong
To put that gallery on the map, because I think it's it is a a wonderful gallery both for people who live in Britain and and visitors to abroad. How did you feel set about it?
Dr Roy Strong
Well, I envisage the gallery in three ways. I think it ought to give a vivid panoramic history of England in terms of a personality using caption and caricature, furniture and other allied material. It ought to be a marvellous reference collection of portraits to which people can have quick access. And it ought to be a research institute publishing wonderful booklets and books on portraiture.
Presenter
Is that your idea of priorities, that first must come the the glamour and the music and lights to bring in the public? No.
Dr Roy Strong
No, because I mean I think anything um to I mean if one had to make a choice I think the the last comes first because the knowledge and the scholarship. Uh from there everything else stems and you can't do the one without the other. You can't do the folder rolls without the brain the brainwork behind it.
Presenter
You've been responsible for some very imaginative, special exhibitions. Which have been the most successful?
Presenter
But quite a number being
Dr Roy Strong
successful but the one That has thrilled me most was the last one called the Elizabethan Image at the Tape Gallery, which closed not long ago.
Dr Roy Strong
And in a way that sort of contained everything I loved since since since, you know, I was a child. It was a whole panorama of of English painting through the children and Elizabethan Jacobean periods, done with theme rooms and music and excitement and surprise.
Presenter
And at the National Portrait Gallery itself you did the photographic exhibition of Cecil Beaton's work.
Dr Roy Strong
Yes, we did that. That was the first show I did after I became director, because I felt that we ought to recognise photography, we ought to recognise Cecil Beaton, and we ought to put ourselves in the land of the living for a change.
Presenter
Two.
Dr Roy Strong
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Now a lot of staff time must be taken up dealing with people who bring pictures to be examined. Do you make many valuable finds this way?
Dr Roy Strong
Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Roy Strong
Things do come in from time to time. No, I would say that we don't make many spectacular discoveries. Most of them are made in the sale room.
Dr Roy Strong
Um but I do think this is an important public service. I mean i abroad it's not done at all.
Presenter
Hmm.
Presenter
You've been very skilful yourself in the sale room. You've identified pictures which you
Presenter
been able to buy very reasonably for the gallery.
Presenter
Which little triumphs do you look back on in the same room with most pleasure?
Dr Roy Strong
Uh
Presenter
Well I thought Mm.
Dr Roy Strong
look back less less in my own era, I thought the most exciting thing of all was sort of two directors ago, and I was at the gallery, when we bought in a minor sale room um a portrait of Milton as a young man for twenty two pounds.
Dr Roy Strong
And it was the long-lost portrait of Milton as a young boy when Aubrey, in his brief life, says that he was so fair they called him the Lady of Christ College. We had a wonderful time cleaning it because the nineteenth century lips came off in the eighteenth century and then eventually one got down to the seventeenth century lips underneath and all the inscriptions were there as recorded in the past. It was very exciting.
Presenter asks
You've been responsible for some very imaginative special exhibitions. Which have been the most successful?
The one That has thrilled me most was the last one called the Elizabethan Image at the Tape Gallery, which closed not long ago. And in a way that sort of contained everything I loved since since since, you know, I was a child. It was a whole panorama of of English painting through the children and Elizabethan Jacobean periods, done with theme rooms and music and excitement and surprise.
Presenter asks
Now a lot of staff time must be taken up dealing with people who bring pictures to be examined. Do you make many valuable finds this way?
Things do come in from time to time. No, I would say that we don't make many spectacular discoveries. Most of them are made in the sale room. Um but I do think this is an important public service. I mean i abroad it's not done at all.
Presenter asks
Which little triumphs do you look back on in the same room [the sale room] with most pleasure?
I look back less less in my own era, I thought the most exciting thing of all was sort of two directors ago, and I was at the gallery, when we bought in a minor sale room um a portrait of Milton as a young man for twenty two pounds. And it was the long-lost portrait of Milton as a young boy when Aubrey, in his brief life, says that he was so fair they called him the Lady of Christ College. We had a wonderful time cleaning it because the nineteenth century lips came off in the eighteenth century and then eventually one got down to the seventeenth century lips underneath and all the inscriptions were there as recorded in the past. It was very exciting.
“I've really been interested in in history and and the history of ideas are the two things which most fascinate me.”
“I envisage the gallery in three ways. I think it ought to give a vivid panoramic history of England in terms of a personality using caption and caricature, furniture and other allied material. It ought to be a marvellous reference collection of portraits to which people can have quick access. And it ought to be a research institute publishing wonderful booklets and books on portraiture.”
“The one That has thrilled me most was the last one called the Elizabethan Image at the Tape Gallery, which closed not long ago. And in a way that sort of contained everything I loved since since since, you know, I was a child.”
“When we bought in a minor sale room um a portrait of Milton as a young man for twenty two pounds. And it was the long-lost portrait of Milton as a young boy when Aubrey, in his brief life, says that he was so fair they called him the Lady of Christ College.”