The Royals with Roya and Kate - The King’s Tour artists: painting the royal visits

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Roya gets an exclusive first look at The King’s Tour: Artists at Buckingham Palace - a remarkable exhibition showcasing never-before-seen artworks from King Charles's personal collection. Curator Kate Heard shares insights into how artists were invited on royal tours to capture intimate behind-the-scenes moments and fleeting stories. Roya also meets Susannah Fiennes, an artist who joined the King on a historic visit to visits to Hong Kong, Oman and the Falklands and recalls the challenge of using watercolours in one of the hottest places on planet Earth.The King’s Tours Artists runs at the Palace until September the 28th, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Welcome to The Royals with Roya and Kate from The Times and Sunday Times. I'm Roya Nikar. Well I have to say that when your diary says private view at the palace, you don't expect it to literally mean just you. No queue, no waiting.

Sadly no Kate either. She sends her love and a little bit of envy. The sunlight is just about dancing on the golden Gates of Buckingham Palace behind me and beyond them a rare privilege. Inside Buckingham Palace a spectacle is on display. It's not the formality of a state banquet or the staged choreography of Changing the Guard but brushstrokes, stories, snapshots of royal life that span nearly four decades. This is the world of the King's tour artists. It's a visual diary of His Majesty's journeys across continents,

captured through the eyes and the brushes of painters entrusted with the royal view. Finally, past security, through a maze of hallways, I'm now in the incredibly opulent surroundings of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. I'm here in the Bull Room and there are paintings of all sizes on the walls around me, because since 1985, 43 artists have joined King Charles on 70 world tours across 95 countries. And some of these 70 works, which are normally on display in royal residences, are on view for the very first time. And if you're expecting glossy portraits,

well, think again. To walk me through this is the woman who helped shape it, Kate Heard, the senior curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust. Hello. Hello, it's an absolute joy to be here. So Kate, can you start by talking me through this picture here, which is John Ward. Now John Ward, if I'm right, was the first tour artist to join the then Prince of Wales on tour in Italy on Royal Britannia. What are we seeing here?

Well, you're seeing a view from Britannia from the after deck, so the back of the ship looking out over the ocean. And what was the tour then? Was it just to Italy and was it to different parts of Italy? Yes, this was an Italian-focused tour. Some of tours that you see here go to different places, to a number of different countries and regions, but the Italy was just Italy, but John Ward did most of his paintings in Venice.

And how did John Ward come to be on the Prince's radar? Am I right thinking that he had sketched the Royal Family up at Balmoral during the 1960s? Yes, John Ward had worked for the late Queen and had done a number of views of the royal family, portraits and views of Balmoral. So he was already known to the Prince of Wales. So the Prince of Wales invited him to accompany him on the tour and started this incredible tradition. Why? Why did the Prince of Wales decide he wanted to have these tours captured? Because of course he'd been on plenty of royal tours before. I mean, he'd started quite young. What was it that he suddenly thought, I want to have these unique moments captured on canvas?

Well, by taking an artist with him, His Majesty is acting as a patron of artists, so providing an opportunity for those artists, but also creating a different sort of visual record of the places that he's visited. And the artists are given a very broad brief, they're told to use that tour as a means to inspire them in whichever way they choose. They have complete creative freedom. And tell me, here, one is by John Ward and one is the then Prince of Wales, now the Kings attempted it. Absolutely. The watercolour next to it is, as you say, the Prince of Wales, now the King's own watercolour of the same view made on that same tour.

So was he also learning as well? Did he like have a little bit of tuition from John Ward on tours? We know that in the early tours, His Majesty would paint alongside the artists. A number of those early artists have described that experience and exchanging techniques. So as the pace of tours has become more and more busy, the King has less opportunity to do that now.

But certainly in those early tours, the King would paint alongside artists and they'd discuss art as well. What do you think it is about artists with their ability to sort of move on these trips that gives them a sort of edge to capture things that sometimes perhaps the photographers and press don't see? I think that the fascinating thing here is each artist is chosen to do it in their own way. So artists have sometimes made the works that you see around you on site in, you know, the moment as the tour is moving and the tour moves very, very fast. It does. Because I remember talking to Fraser Scarf and he talks about how incredibly fast you have to work as an artist on tour because you either have to advance for the engagement and then sometimes, you know, the engagements are very quick and you blink and you miss it waiting for that moment behind the scenes.

They have to be very, they have to adapt to conditions and the moving pack. Yes, a lot of the artists have talked about how quickly the tour moves and reacting to that and how that's proved a really interesting exercise for them. Other artists have created sketches and photographs and then come back and worked up their works in the studio. So you see something of the artist's choice as well as the tour itself. Now John Wall was a very famous portraitist. He actually painted both my parents,

so I love to see his work. Did he ever do royal portraits of? He has done portraits of royal sitters, but for the Italy tour, it is views of Italy, it's views of Venice, and very dominated by views of Britannia. And we were surrounded by beautiful artworks here that are from tour artists, but these

are the ones that the King has personally chosen for his private collection. Can you tell me a little bit about where these normally hang and what they tell us about the King's taste? These are normally hanging as His Majesty's private property. It's really exciting to be able to put them on display. At least one work from each tour goes into His Majesty's collection. There are over 300 works by tour artists in His Majesty's collection. So we have chosen those works by tour artists to illustrate the project. You can see the real variety. You can see the variety of medium. You can see the variety of subject matter.

They're incredible sort of views of those places that have been visited on those official tours. So it's a really rich and varied collection. And we know he's a great patron of the arts. I mean, he's patron and president of so many different arts organizations. But how do the artists that are chosen for each tour come onto his radar? How does he find out about them? In many different ways. Some artists word of mouth, some artists he'll encounter their works. Of course he's got his drawing school as well. Exactly. And Fraser Scarfe is a member of staff,

the most recent tour artist member of staff at the Royal Drawing School. We were with him on tour to Italy and we spoke to him about how he'd failed to get into loads of various prestigious art schools when he was young, given up and then it was a full scholarship to what was then the Prince's drawing school, I think, that got him back into it. Yes, and that wonderful work recently, that recent tour is absolutely fantastic. Yeah. We're just going to have a little potter through some of these. Talk to me about this picture.

This is the Galapagos Islands, is that right? Yes, this is by the artist Richard Foster made on a tour to Chile, Brazil and Ecuador in 2009. And you see their Royal Highnesses as they were Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, looking out over the ocean and Richard Foster's just beautifully captured the bright light, the textures, that just wonderful moment of reflection. And this picture here, this is by which artist? This is Daphne Todd.

And there's something quite special about this because she had to be very free to capture this, but also waiting for the right weather conditions. So where are we here? This is looking out at Mount Kilimanjaro. And this is one of the works that's made on site. We know that Daphne Todd wanted to capture this view. So she moved separately from the tour. She went to specifically capture this view

as part of the tour. So she had a little bit more time, but if you look closely at this, you can see it's made on two smaller boards. And so the artist has prepared two boards so she can work and be portable. She talks about how she used tissues because paint takes a while to dry

to separate those boards for transport, but she wanted to paint the mountain and it was covered in cloud. And so she painted the foreground just knowing that it would appear and the clouds parted at the right moment. So a real sort of triumph of having faith that it would appear. So I'm just going to move to this one here because we're looking at two pictures both from the same year, one in Kenya, state visit 2023, one in Germany from the same year.

Of course, the German state visit that year became the first outgoing state visit of King Charles's new reign. Plus we were supposed to have gone to France first, but there was some rioting, so Germany became the first, so it's a bit of a coup. And this is by Tim Scott Bolton. So was this during an engagement when, I remember there was a very grand ceremonial welcome at the Brandenburg Gate, I remember it. Was it, did he do that then? Did he come back to it? It's one of a number of views that Tim Scott Bolton captured of Berlin particularly during the tour and he talks about how it was a very wet tour, it was very rainy and... Hamburg was very wet.

It's a challenge for a watercolour artist but it has really captured that beautiful sculpture on top of the Brandenburg Gate. It's a wonderful watercolour and it's nice to be able to display it so high so you get the sense of looking up to the quadriga. Same year, very different kind of state visit that we did to Kenya. So tell me a little bit about this artist and I remember this engagement actually, it was with the Queen feeding baby elephants, it was very sweet and then the King turned up and it all became, yes, it was very sweet. But tell me a little bit about the artist and how they managed to capture it. This is in Nairobi National Park. Philip Booter, the artist, this was his first engagement as a tour artist

and he captured a number of things but this beautiful oil on a gesso board, people look at it closely, it's got this wonderful smooth texture to it. He's really captured the wonderful sort of scene of the elephants playing. There were a lot of giggles during that engagement. There was a lot of giggling from the Queen and feeding the baby, feeding I think a milk bottle to one of the baby elephants. It was very, very sweet and the King really enjoyed it too. Finally, I just want to touch on this painting here by Susanna Fiennes. This is from a very important tour in 1997 of course when the then Prince of Wales went and attended the handover from Britain back to China of Hong Kong. So tell me about this picture by Susanna Fiennes and what we're seeing. This is a wonderful watercolour of two yachtsmen lowering

the flag on Britannia which is something that happened on the yacht every day. You can see one of them lowering the flag, the other saluting. Britannia obviously decommissioned after this tour, so this is a wonderful capturing of life on that trip. That trip was of course very emotional for so many reasons. The Prince of Wales handed over, effectively attended the handover of Hong Kong back to China and of course final farewell to Royal Britannia, which was such an important part of the royal family's life. Kate, thank you so much for walking and talking me through these pictures.

It's been an absolute joy. I'm now going to go have a little wander, find out a little bit more about that trip and have a chat with Susanna now. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer,

so download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Now there are very few places in London where you can step outside of a palace straight into a Royal Park. Here we are now in Green Park, just by calendar gate and I'm here with the wonderful Susanna Fiennes who's one of the tour artists that I've been looking at inside Buckingham Palace.

Welcome Susanna. Thank you, Roya. Thanks. I've just been looking at your fantastic yachtsman on Royal Britannia. Tell me a little bit about that picture, which tour it was on and how you came to do it. I was invited to go in 1997 for the Hong Kong handover

and we were based in the Royal Yacht. You have to say in the yacht because it's a palace. Wow. It was considered a palace. Okay. In the yacht rather than on the yacht. What was it like being in Royal Yacht Britannia? I can't begin to describe it. It was a slightly a time warp. I think it probably hadn't been redecorated since the 1950s but it had an enormous charm. The bed had a horsehair mattress. Gosh okay. There was a proper bathroom to each cabin with a very hot towel rail. I remember burning my leg when we were at sea because it was quite rough and

it was complete luxury. There were about 200 sailors looking after us. And on that tour, obviously a very emotional tour for so many reasons, how did you come to be involved on the royal tours? I was first invited in 1995 because a friend of mine from art school, Emma Sargent, had traveled with the then Prince to Morocco, I think, and he asked her to recommend something. And she never told me that she'd given him my name. So I got a call out of the blue

from one of his secretaries inviting me to go to Oman in 95 for the, it was the 25th anniversary of the Sultan's reign so that was the reason for the trip and and off I went with no experience of anything like that and not much preparation except for the very kind team because you're very much part of the team. Yes. And the private secretary just said, do whatever you like, paint whatever you like, and then the then prince will get to choose what he wants.

Let's go back to Hong Kong. Talk to me a little bit about what that trip was like, the kind of things you saw, how you were working while you were there. It was extremely challenging, and I think all the other tour artists will agree that that's the one thing you have to deal with. You're very jet-lagged, surviving in Hong Kong after an overnight flight and you're

straight, you're straight to work and you haven't got a lot of time, you want to take advantage of the opportunity. All the staff are very helpful, everybody says, in fact that very first moment I took a boat over to Kowloon and painted the Royal Yacht in situ with the Hong Kong skyline as the backdrop and then you have to turn up and change for lunch with the dignitaries who are coming on board so you have to suddenly be into a different gear and that was fun too because as an artist you're normally working alone I had a studio in Clapham and suddenly I was part of this enormously well-oiled machine where everybody was focused on the prince

being able to do his job to the best of his ability and it's you know the whole of the world spotlight was on Hong Kong at that moment. Yes it was a huge moment of such significance. Everyone remembers that ceremony and the Prince of Wales there and the flag being lowered down and the rain. The lowering of the flag of the yachts from that painting, I mean it's so evocative of the lowering of the flag that we saw at the Han River ceremony. Tell me how you came to the idea behind painting that painting. I've got shivers actually even remembering it because it was so moving because actually it was as you said it was the

end of the Royal Yacht as well as the end of Hong Kong. Yes. So there were so many levels in which it was emotional and significant and I every evening there was the ceremony of the of the lowering of the flag with the band playing these very poignant naval or military tunes. It was really quite haunting and so I saw these sailors every night and there was, I think there was symbolism there but there was also the structure. I did them actually, those pictures back in my studio from, possibly from memory, possibly from drawings. And I just loved the way they were reaching up with their, I love the structure of arms.

You get the shapes in between. If you look at those paintings, they're basically the white paper, and I just painted around them. Now those paint, all the paintings that are on display as part of the exhibition are all normally in His Majesty's royal residences. Do you know where the yachtsman normally hangs?

Do you know? I don't. It may be in an attic. I don't know. Oh, I doubt it. I actually don't know. And I, to be honest, I'd forgotten which ones from each trip that he'd chosen.

And of course you went to Oman as well as the Falklands. During those trips, do you have total free reign to do what you want? The king doesn't give you any instruction as to what to paint or what to capture. You're just there doing your thing. His only words to me when I first met him on the Aeropane, do whatever you like.

That must be wonderful as an artist to hear from the future king. Well, it's a mixed blessing actually, because in some ways it would be much easier if he'd just said paint all the people on the trip but given such free range you really are under pressure because you don't want to miss anything and sometimes there's a lot of waiting around so you might be sitting in a waiting room. You know,man, I drew the Minister for Water Resources, who we were all waiting while the then prince was meeting with the Sultan.

And I just took that, you had to seize any opportunity. But yes, having that freedom was an amazing privilege. And you mentioned the pressure of being a tour artist. I mean, I've been on a lot of royal tours with the king and the queen, and there are moments there are a lot of waiting around, but sometimes the tour moves very fast from engagement to engagement.

What's it like, what are the challenges of being a tour artist when things are moving kind of at pace and don't always go to plan? I can't even begin to describe how stressful it can be, because on the one hand, you're trying to do your work. You're a professional, and you're very conscious that you want to give back as much as you've received.

And on the other hand, there's a motorcade waiting, and woe betide if you miss the motorcade, it never did happen to me. I was always traveling in a car with the doctor, and he always had to travel immediately close up to the then prince. And so- That's a good way of keeping up. Yeah, and he looked had to travel immediately close up to the then prince. That's a good way of keeping up. Yeah, and he looked after me. He was such a gentleman. So I stuck with him.

And then the heat. The other thing was a real challenge. In the desert in Oman, I hadn't prepared for the fact that doing watercolours in probably 40 degrees is a very different challenge because the water evaporates at such a speed, very different from Clapham. Yes, I think very different to a Clapham studio, the Omani does it. I had to adjust to that but in a very short time. Meanwhile I'd be handed a gin and tonic by the bodyguard. So not bad working conditions. There were some very very very comical moments.

And of those three tours you did, Hong Kong, Oman, the Falklands, are there any paintings or sketches that are particularly special to you, that you particularly remember enjoying doing? Well, I think of the three trips, the Hong Kong one was, the historic value of it was unparalleled.

There's one I did actually of the Royal Yacht. Oh, she was so beautiful. I feel very attached to that. I think he has that picture. And then when I got home, you see, I had a lot of these drawings and watercolours that I could then use to develop into bigger paintings. I mean, the then Prince would have his, he would have first choice. But I would then be able to use, there were no constraints about how I could then use the rest of the works. You have exhibitions all the time and lots of leading galleries here and around the world. How special is it to be exhibited at

Buckingham Palace? Well I don't think it's really hit me yet but I think it will be an enormous excitement and I can't begin to say how much it meant to have that as I wasn't so young but to have that sort of endorsement and the trust that the then Prince put in, in the artist coming on the trip. He didn't know anything much about me. And it gave me such opportunities.

And I think if other people can be encouraged to support young artists in their endeavors, so much the better. Well, I have absolutely loved seeing your work inside the palace. I've seen the exhibition you're gonna see it later this week you're in for a real treat when you see it. Susanna Fine thank you so much for joining me on the royals. Thank you very much Royal. It's easy to think of royal tours in headlines, the diplomatic handshakes, the speeches, the

motorcades. But this exhibition at the Palace shows us something entirely different. It shows us the quieter side, the pauses, the people, the moments you'd miss if you'd blink, despite what's going on outside in Green Park and all the hubbub here. My thanks to the Royal Collection Trust for letting me walk through this exhibition all alone which was a real privilege and one I won't forget in a hurry. The Royals with Laura and Kate will be back next week and until then if you'd like to get in touch you can email us at theroyalsatthetimes.co.uk. Thank you for listening to the Royals, and thank you to the artists who saw what the cameras didn't. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

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