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Cecil Harmsworth King

6 of 10 portraits of Cecil Harmsworth King

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Cecil Harmsworth King

by Graham Sutherland
oil on canvas, 1969
36 1/4 in. x 28 3/4 in. (920 mm x 731 mm)
Bequeathed by the sitter's widow, Dame Ruth King, 2002
Primary Collection
NPG 6613

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Graham Vivian Sutherland (1903-1980), Painter. Artist or producer associated with 23 portraits, Sitter in 62 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This portrait was commissioned for the Board Room of IPC. But even as King sat for Sutherland, its fate was overtaken by events. For in 1968, King, convinced that the country under Harold Wilson was heading for financial disaster, proposed an emergency government under Lord Mountbatten. Advised by Solly Zuckerman that this would be treason, Mountbatten refused. After an inflammatory piece in the Mirror, King was dismissed by IPC and retired to Ireland with his second wife, Ruth Railton, the founder of the National Youth Orchestra. The portrait never hung in the Board Room and was given to the sitter by the incoming Chairman.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG x19141: Cecil Harmsworth King (includes the portrait)

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1969back to top

Current affairs

The Open University is established, based on the vision of Michael Young. Its aims were to offer the chance to study for higher education qualifications on a part time and distance learning basis, giving people who were unable to attend a traditional university because of family, work commitments or disability the opportunity to achieve university degrees.

Art and science

The comedy sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus is first broadcast. The Pythons performed surreal sketches that reinvented the comedy tradition, eschewing punch lines for a stream-of-consciousness structure and incongruous authorial interventions: 'and now for something completely different'.
Kenneth Tynan's Oh! Calcutta amuses and shocks audiences with full nudity on stage, taking advantage of the recent end to censorship laws.

International

Neil Armstrong takes 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' when he becomes the first man on the moon.
Concorde makes its first supersonic flight. The plane was designed, developed and manufactured by a joint treaty between the French and English governments.

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