Christopher Fletcher

Fancy dress parade

Sir Roy poses as Henry VIII, Rasputin, Tennyson and other assorted princes, priests and poets in a series of mock masterpieces by the photographer John Swannell

For his 75th birthday, Sir Roy Strong gave himself a personal trainer. For his 80th, he has commissioned a book of portraits of himself by the photographer John Swannell. The fruits of all that training — much of it undertaken on a racing tricycle around the lanes of Herefordshire — can be seen in the six-pack he sports in one of the luscious, technically excellent images. Oh, hold on a mo, it’s the costume of a Roman Emperor, Photoshopped to turn Roy into classical sculpture for his latest garden temple!

This magnificently potty book takes us through 30 versions of Roy done after celebrated portraits, or in the manner of various schools. He is swoon-worthy as a Victorian Sir Galahad, masterful as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and bloody terrifying as Rasputin. Swannell, alas, drew the line at David Beckham. From his early scholarship at the Warburg, to his directorships of the National Portrait Gallery and V&A, portraits have been Roy’s thing. As, of course, has been sashaying through society in beautiful plumage while recording the whole parade, both in photographs and in waspish and witty diaries which, as this book reveals, he has started keeping again.

A Renaissance prince (Federigo da Montefeltro, after Piero della Francesca) Roy Strong at 80: Photographs by John Swannell, an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, will run until 31 August, admission free
A Renaissance prince (Federigo da Montefeltro, after Piero della Francesca) Roy Strong at 80: Photographs by John Swannell, an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, will run until 31 August, admission free

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