Three artists were given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment during last year’s Royal Wedding and the resulting work will be on display at Hyde Park Barracks, Knightsbridge, London SW7, this month (April 23-26), in a selling exhibition celebrating The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s one-year anniversary.
For the past 12 months, Katie Scorgie, Tom Hoar and Daniel Crane have been creating some 40 paintings, sketches and background studies based on the regiment’s movements during the celebrations in 2011. The work features the hundreds of men and horses that were involved in the public ceremonies, as well as preparations backstage.
Mr Crane, a passionate hunting man who is best known for his fieldsports paintings, says that he focused on ‘the suppressed air of orderly excitement’ and personal glimpses, such as ‘a warm moment between a trooper and his mount’. He adds: ‘As a horseman myself, I recognise the different characters among the horses and paint them as such, yet still retaining their soldierly uniformity.’
Specialising in oils and water-colours, Mr Hoar, the son of an artist and the grandson of an architect, says he concentrated on ‘the immense individual and collective effort of regimental daily life and the hardworking graft of the soldiers’.
Equestrian artist and former point-to-point jockey Miss Scorgie comments: ‘It’s been interesting to see how life works behind the scenes and to learn about the saddlery and regimental outfits. It’s quite an undertaking to capture all this important detail in an understated way, but I’m so enjoying the challenge.’
All three were allowed unrivalled access to the Colonel’s Review, Beating Retreat, preparations at Windsor Castle for the Garter Ceremony and tours of Hyde Park Barracks and Horse Guards, all
of which feature in the exhibition. Proceeds will go to a new charity, the Household Cavalry Foundation, which will support the regiment’s operational casualties, as well as serving and retired cavalrymen and their families, plus horse welfare.
For more information, visit the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment’s’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/hcmr
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