Edward Seago: Painting with the Prince

"Portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh" by Edward Seago

"For Prince Philip the journey on the Britannia involved a full programme of official commitments but he obviously regarded painting as an integral part of relaxation. He and Seago often worked together, either at separate easels or combining their efforts to produce a lino-cut for a 'Red Nose' certificate to be given to each member of the ship's company to commemorate their visit inside the Antarctic Circle. 'Prince Philip has really done the design for it although the wardroom asked me,' read the entry in Seago's diary, 'but I must admit his idea is better than what I had in mind! I am amazed at his keenness and energy.' This was written on the day when both men had experimented on an improvised roller to print three hundred sheets from the lino-block. 'The first pulls were not awfully encouraging,' Seago wrote, 'but Prince Philip was full of determination.' When the technical problems were resolved, the Prince headed a team of shift workers who volunteered to work the roller.

At one point during the voyage world tour during the voyage, the prince painted a portrait of Seago at his easel on board the Royal Yacht, Seago, in turn, made a portrait of the prince at work with his oil paints. The pair of paintings were shown together in the 2016 exhibition “Portrait of the Artist” at Buckingham Palace. 

One afternoon just before Christmas Seago wrote in his diary that he and the Prince had a joint effort of sea and sky. Some years afterwards recalling the 'joint effort' Prince Philip said he suspected that his own part was to ask Seago where he had gone wrong in his picture and Seago would have come over and put him right. 

Prince Philip spent quite a lot of time on the trip trying to do skies and seas, but not with any great success. He found it always very discouraging to try and learn from Seago because one felt as if one were riding a bicycle on the ground while the painter was riding another on the high wire above. Just watching Seago at work gave him great pleasure, he said, 'because while the results were fantastic, just watching the way he achieved them was even more fantastic.' 

Seago wrote down a list of colours he recommended should be put on the palette and Prince Philip always kept the old envelope with the list on the back in his paintbox although he noted that Seago was far more economical in his colours than he was.  

Seago's capacity for work was tremendous, the Prince recalled: 'He was always sketching. He always seemed to have a pencil in his hand and with just a few lines could reproduce all the atmosphere and feel of a place with just the smallest pencil sketch. He also had this photographic memory and if he'd ever painted anything he could always remember exactly how he'd painted it; not just what he'd painted but the way he'd done it.' 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)