Buckingham Palace Summer House

In 2013 I was invited to create a mural for the Summer House within the gardens of Buckingham Palace ~ one of five QEST scholars selected to transform the octagonal building as part of the Coronation Festival, a celebration of the 60th anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation.

My brief was to design something for three of the Summer House’s eight walls. The other five walls are glass doors ~ so the painting had to hold its own against the light of the Palace gardens and create the sense of a world beyond the world, a landscape that would reward those who sat with it.

Finding the paintings

I began in the Royal Collection online, foraging for inspiration. I discovered two paintings by the Georgian landscape artist John Wootton ~ both depicting bucolic rolling landscapes with views of Henley-on-Thames. Then I unearthed a third: ‘View of Park Place’. It turned out the three paintings had likely been conceived to hang together in the same room. It felt like destiny that they should be reunited for this panoramic commission.

Painstakingly I stitched the scenes together in Photoshop, depopulating them of their hunting narratives, joining up the horizons and adding a few strategic trees. The resulting composition was now a seamless panorama that would flow across the three walls of the Summer House.

Making the panels

It was impractical to paint on site, so I had nine stretcher frames constructed ~ each 109 × 211cm ~ and painted the entire composition at my Hastings studio. It took an intensive six weeks, including several days of canvas stretching.

The opening

On the Festival’s Royal Preview Day I presented my canvas murals to H.M. The Queen and TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. The Queen chose this design from the proposals submitted ~ a detail I remain both honoured and moved by.