Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton (January 14, 1904 – January 18, 1980) was an English fashion and portrait photographer and a stage and costume designer for films and the theatre.
Photography
Educated at Harrow and St. John's College, Cambridge, Beaton picked up photography on his own. He taught himself the tricks of the trade as a young boy, taking the usual pictures of friends and family. At the end of his college career in 1925, he had set up his own successful photography studio. One of his earliest clients and, later, best friends was Stephen Tennant; Beaton's photographs of Tennant and his circle are considered some of the best representations of the "Bright Young Things" of the twenties and thirties.
He was already taking photographs for the British edition of Vogue in 1931 when George Hoyningen-Huene, who was a photographer for the French Vogue traveled to England with his new friend Horst. Horst himself would begin to work for French Vogue in November of that year. The exchange and cross pollination of ideas between this collegial circle of artists across the Channel and the Atlantic gave rise to the look of style and sophistication for which the 1930s are known.
Beaton is best known for his fashion photographs and society portraits. He worked as a staff photographer for Vanity Fair and Vogue in addition to photographing celebrities in Hollywood.
Beaton's first camera was a Kodak 3A folding camera. Over the course of his career, he employed both large format cameras, and smaller Rolleiflex cameras. Beaton was never known as a highly skilled technical photographer, and instead focused on staging a compelling model or scene and looking for the perfect shutter-release moment.
Beaton often photographed the Royal Family for official publication. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother was his favorite Royal sitter, and he once pocketed her scented hankie as a keepsake from a highly successful shoot. Beaton took the famous wedding pictures of the Duke and Duchesss of Windsor (wearing an ensemble by the noted fashion designer Mainbocher). During the second world war, he worked for the British Ministry of Information, as a documentary photographer.
Stage and film design
The cover of Cecil Beaton's Fair Lady Beaton's diary of working on the filmAfter the war, Beaton tackled the Broadway stage, designing sets, costumes, and lighting for a 1946 revival of Lady Windermere's Fan, in which he also acted.
His most lauded achievement for the stage was the sets and costumes for Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956), which led to two Lerner and Loewe film musicals, Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964), both of which earned Beaton the Academy Award for Costume Design.
His last work for Broadway was sets and costumes for Coco (1969) starring Katharine Hepburn.
Later life
In 1972, he received his knighthood, but suffered a stroke two years later. This hindered him from photographing for five years. He picked up the camera again for a short while in 1979, but died the following year.
Though primarily homosexual — the great love of his life was the wealthy art collector Peter Watson - he did have relationships with women, including the actress Greta Garbo and socialite Doris Castlerosse. He claimed that his heterosexual virginity was taken by American socialite Marjorie Oelrichs. Beaton also claimed to have had an affair with the American actor Gary Cooper, who was a close friend of his for many years.
Notable Photographs
Elizabeth II's Coronation, 1953.
Audrey Hepburn, 1964.
Bomb Victim, 1940.
Dame Edith Sitwell, 1956.
Books by Cecil Beaton
Persona Grata, 1953.
Indian Diary and Album
The glass of fashion
My Bolivian aunt: a memoir
My royal past
Chinese Diary and Album
Japanese
Self-portrait with friends : the selected diaries of Cecil Beaton 1926-1974.
The wandering years; diaries, 1922-1939.
The years between; diaries 1939-44.
The strenuous years, diaries 1948-55.
The restless years : diaries, 1955-63.
The parting years : diaries, 1963-74.
The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1970-1980.
Beaton in the Sixties: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1965-1969
Cecil Beaton's 'Fair Lady', (1966) (diary excerpts and costume sketches)
The face of the world : an international scrapbook of people and places.
I take great pleasure.
Quail in Aspic: the life story of Count Charles Korsetz
Exhibitions
Major exhibitions have been held at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1968 and in 2004.
The first international exhibition in thirty years, and first exhibition of his works to be held in Australia was held in Bendigo, Victoria from 10 December 2005 to 26 March 2006.
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