Side course – Prince Charles would have loved to be an artist

How to wait on the steps to the throne as the United Kingdom prepares to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II? At the age of 73, the heir to the British Crown, Charles, Prince of Wales, puts all his talents to the service of noble causes and shows, as well as all the palette of his personality. Prince Charles has always devoted himself to the solitary enjoyment of painting, and especially to watercolors. He had published a collection of his “Watercolours” for the benefit of his charity nearly twenty years earlier and also illustrated his book “A Vision of Britain” on architecture. An artistic passion that he shared with Winston Churchill, but also with his grandmother Queen Victoria, and that his father, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, passed on to him. Unlike his father, who kept this Ingres violin for the privacy of his private apartment, the heir to the crown presents his works to the public and displays at least 79 watercolors in the elegant setting of a chapel in London . Renovated from the 19th century.

This is the largest exhibition of his works to date. For nearly fifty years, the Prince of Wales has set his easels in places where he enjoys beauty and serenity, and has used his brushes to depict the landscapes of Scotland, the yacht Britannia, the Isles of Scilly, wealth and Brings out its colours. The legacy of the royal residences … Their travels are also an inexhaustible source of inspiration for them, from the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland to the Kalahari desert, from the hills of Tuscany to Mount Athos in Greece, without forgetting our Provence where the photographers were One day the whole artistic creation was astonished. “The prince puts his easel in the open air and often finishes his canvas in one go. He sometimes paints in the mountains during ski holidays and even on official trips, when his schedule allows it,” explained a Clarence House spokesperson. In 2004, he also created labels for the bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild wine to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordial.

He chose watercolors from the exhibition

It was Charles himself who personally selected watercolors from his works for the exhibition presented by the venue and the country until 14 February. Thus we travel, without forgetting Romanian Transylvania, from the Laces of Montmirail in Provence to Mount Athos in Greece, from the snow-capped Scottish Moors to Wales, where the prince bought properties to bring villages back to life. The prince’s brush has also immortalized the snow-capped mountains of Cloisters and Saint-Moritz in Switzerland or the Château du Baroux in the south of France. But it is especially in Scotland that the prince prefers to recharge his batteries and, when he is not fishing for salmon in the River Dee, immortalizes Munro bein ‘bhurd from the Cairngorm mountain range. , which has been painted several times at different times. of the year and from ever-changing angles. In a presentation of his exhibition at the Garrison Chapel in Belgravia, London, the Prince of Wales explains that he “choose watercolor because he found the photo unsatisfactory …

It requires the most intense concentration and is therefore one of the most relaxing and therapeutic exercises I know of.” “It transports me to another dimension, refreshing parts of the soul where other activities do not. Despite his undeniable talent in the empire of great travelers and the tradition of English watercolors, Prince Charles is humble. “I have no illusions about their quality, but they represent my special kind of photographic album , and as such, are very important to me”. According to the exhibition’s curator, Rosie Alderton, “Prince Charles comes from a line of artists”, as he was preceded by Queen Victoria who left many watercolors and drawings, or Prince Philip. who had introduced him to oil painting. Over the years, the heir to the throne found time to paint 680 watercolors, sometimes signing A.G. Carrick, a pseudonym that replaced his two other first names, Arthur and George, and their titles. Earl of Carrick was created from. On the other hand, none of Prince Charles’s original watercolors have ever been for sale, even though some, reproduced as lithography, can reach thousands of pounds sterling on the Internet. Some lithographs are also sold on his Highgrove estate. And all proceeds from the sale are donated to the Prince’s Foundation, which organized the exhibition, or to their other charities such as the Prince’s Trust. This majestic hobby can pay off too! According to the very serious “Daily Telegraph”, sales of copies of his watercolors since 1997 have brought him … 6 million pounds sterling, or 7.8 million euros. Today, depending on your budget, you can buy a lithograph or reproduction of the Prince’s watercolor for a “modest” amount of £2,500 or €3,280. But it can go much higher, up to 20,000 euros. That’s as much money as Prince Charles for social work that helps young people in difficulty through his charitable foundation “The Prince’s Trust”.

It was Anna Hunter, owner of the Belgravia Gallery in London, who, after seeing the works of the heir to the Crown in a magazine, was the first to exhibit them in the late 1980s. Prince Charles had already been displayed at Hampton Court. Palace in 1998, on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, and in 2018 by the National Gallery of Australia to thirty others for his seventieth birthday. Since 2019, with the monopoly of his royal businesses, especially Queen Elizabeth II confined to Windsor Castle and no longer traveling much, the prince has hardly had time to devote to his watercolors. Will he have to give up this royal hobby when he becomes king? “I hope so,” says Rosie Alderton again, “because her works are really fascinating.” But there is more than one politician in London who hopes that this princely derivation will distract them a bit from Charles’s frenzy to constantly write letters to different ministries to alert him to the difficulties facing his future subjects. will give…

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