About this piece
back to topA reclaimed carved stone RS monogram wall plaque from Sir Roy Strong’s Laskett Garden, Herefordshire.
This gilt and stone plaque has deep scrolling leaves carved in high relief. The raised monogram and border have a worn gilded finish.
This panel, along with two others commemorated a significant year in Sir Roy’s life. His widely celebrated 80th birthday was in 2015. The same year, Strong was featured in an exhibit in the National Portrait Gallery – ‘Roy Strong at 80’ Photographed by John Swannell. Also, Strong was featured in the BBC documentary ‘When Lucy Met Roy: Sir Roy Strong at 80.’
Sir Roy Strong CH, FRSL, FSA (B. 23 August 1935)
Born in Middlesex, England in 1935, Art Historian Sir Roy Strong was able to attend grammar school which led to him earning a first class honours degree in history. This was followed by a PHD from the prestigious Warburg institute, before he became a research fellow at the London Institute of Historical Research.
Strong went on to become the director of the National Portrait Gallery at age 32 before becoming the youngest ever Director at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum at age 38 in 1974. In 1973, Sir Roy Strong and his wife Julia Trevelyan Oman, Lady Strong CBE (11 July 1930 – 10 October 2003) exited London on the tail end of the cultural revolution of the sixties and eloped to a rural property in Much Birch, Herefordshire.
Over the next thirty years the couple built up the four-acre Laskett Garden, the largest created since the second world war. The garden became a tribute to their individual and joint achievements, with sections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth after Strong’s early interests in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare after Roy was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare award, Covent Garden after Julia’s commissions and the Beaton Bridge after the publication of Cecil Beaton’s Royal Portraits by Roy Strong.
