Earlier this week, I went up with some of my choir friends to the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square to see the Cecil Beaton exhibition. Somewhere in the back of my brain I knew the name, but I knew very little about the man or his work. It turned out to be a very interesting exhibition and very informative.
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| Cecil Beaton |
Born in 1904, at the age of 12, he was given a camera by his nanny which he proceeded to use most of his life. In the 1920s and 1930s, he used it to photograph black and white portraits of his family and himself. He went on to mingle with debutantes and socialites, taking many pictures of beautiful women. What struck me most was how busy most of the backgrounds of his portraits were.
He dallied with a career in New York for a while. He designed book jackets and even clothes and eventually took on work with Vogue magazine and Vanity Fair in 1927. He was fired in 1938 for making anti-semitic comments and returned to England. During the war years, he worked at the Ministry of Information as a War Photographer, best known for his images of the damage done by the German Blitz, such as the little girl below.
He ingratiated himself into the Royal Family and went on to take photos of Edward and Mrs Simpson, The Queen Mother and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
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| Portrait of Princess Elizabeth 1945 |
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| Princess Margaret on her 21st birthday |
After the war, he took on Broadway, designing, sets for various productions. His many portraits included John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn to name a few. His most memorable work was the design of costumes and sets for My Fair Lady and he was a keen friend of Audrey Hepburn who played Eliza Doolittle.
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| Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle |
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| Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle |
From 1930 to 1945, Beaton leased Ashcombe House in Wiltshire, where he entertained many notable figures. In 1947, he bought Reddish House, set in 2.5 acres of gardens, approximately 5 miles to the east in Broad Chalke. Here he transformed the interior, adding rooms on the eastern side, extending the parlour southwards, and introducing many new fittings. He loved the house and remained there until his death in 1980. He is buried in the parish church there.
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| Reddish House, Wiltshire |
3 comments:
His photographs were well known, and his costume designs for My Fair Lady were very striking, but I gather he was not a particularly nice person.
Hello Addy,
A talented photographer indeed and we still think about the My Fair Lady costumes which were wonderful and have become iconic. In his private life he was a complex character and not always kind. Love affairs and scandals seemed to follow him everywhere but he could take a very fine picture.
Well that does sound like a very interesting exhibition Addy. My favourite image is the one of Princess Margaret on her 21st birthday. I guess that Cecil Beaton enjoyed unique access to a lot of famous people.
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