(Wonderful Beaton photograph of Audrey Hepburn on front pa...)
Wonderful Beaton photograph of Audrey Hepburn on front panel of dustjacket. In 1962 Warner Brothers asked Cecil Beaton to take charge of the clothes and sets for the film of My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. In these marvelously entertaining pages, Beaton's witty pen has recorded the strains, satisfactions, delights, and despairs of making a major movie, while his pencil has sketched the stars behind the scenes and his camera has recorded pictures of the film in progress.
The Glass of Fashion: A Personal History of Fifty Years of Changing Tastes and the People Who Have Inspired Them
(The classic book presents the iconic photographer’s exper...)
The classic book presents the iconic photographer’s expert and witty reminiscences of the personalities who inspired fashion’s golden eras, and left an indelible mark on his own sense of taste and style.
The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1970-1980
(Cecil Beaton was one of the great twentieth-century taste...)
Cecil Beaton was one of the great twentieth-century tastemakers. A photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, he was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. The Unexpurgated Beaton brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited.
Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, and an Oscar-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre.
Background
Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in Hampstead, the son of Ernest Walter Hardy Beaton (1867-1936), a prosperous timber merchant, and his wife, Esther "Etty" Sisson (1872-1962). His grandfather, Walter Hardy Beaton (1841-1904), had founded the family business of "Beaton Brothers Timber Merchants and Agents", and his father followed into the business. Ernest Beaton was an amateur actor and met his wife, Cecil's mother Esther ("Etty"), when playing the lead in a play. She was the daughter of a Cumbrian blacksmith named Joseph Sisson and had come to London to visit her married sister.
Education
Cecil Beaton was educated at Heath Mount School (where he was bullied by Evelyn Waugh) and St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, where his artistic talent was quickly recognised.
When Beaton was growing up his nanny had a Kodak 3A Camera, a popular model which was renowned for being an ideal piece of equipment to learn on. Beaton's nanny began teaching him the basics of photography and developing film. He would often get his sisters and mother to sit for him. When he was sufficiently proficient, he would send the photos off to London society magazines, often writing under a pen name and "recommending" the work of Beaton.
Cecil Beaton attended Harrow School, and then, despite having little or no interest in academia, moved on to St John's College, Cambridge, and studied history, art and architecture.
He continued his photography, and through his university contacts managed to get a portrait depicting the Duchess of Malfi published in Vogue. Beaton left Cambridge without a degree in 1925.
Career
After a short time in the family timber business, Cecil Beaton worked with a cement merchant in Holborn. This resulted in 'an orgy of photography at weekends' so he decided to strike out on his own. Under the patronage of Osbert Sitwell he put on his first exhibition in the Cooling Gallery, London. It caused quite a stir. Believing that he would meet with greater success on the other side of the Atlantic, he left for New York and slowly built up a reputation there. By the time he left, he had "a contract with Condé Nast Publications to take photographs exclusively for them for several thousand pounds a year for several years to come."
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 (8.0 km) 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. Greta Garbo was a visitor. He remained at the house until his death in 1980 and is buried in the churchyard.
Beaton designed book jackets, and costumes for charity matinees, learning the craft of photography at the studio of Paul Tanqueray, until Vogue took him on regularly in 1927. He set up his own studio, and one of his earliest clients and, later, best friends was Stephen Tennant.
Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was a photographer for the British edition of Vogue in 1931 when George Hoyningen-Huene, photographer for the French Vogue travelled 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.
Cecil Beaton returned to England, where the Queen recommended him to the Ministry of Information (MoI). He became a leading war photographer, best known for his images of the damage done by the German Blitz. He often photographed the Royal Family for official publication. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was his favourite 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 Duchess of Windsor (wearing an haute couture ensemble by the noted American fashion designer Mainbocher).
After 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 costumes for Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956) were highly praised. This led to two Lerner and Loewe film musicals, Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964), each of which earned Beaton the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. He also designed the period costumes for the 1970 film On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. He designed the sets and costumes for a production of Puccini’s last opera Turandot, first used at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and then at Covent Garden.
Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was knighted in the 1972 New Year Honours. Two years later he suffered a stroke that would leave him permanently paralysed on the right side of his body. Although he learnt to write and draw with his left hand, and had cameras adapted, Beaton became frustrated by the limitations the stroke had put upon his work. As a result of his stroke, Beaton became anxious about financial security for his old age and, in 1976, entered into negotiations with Philippe Garner, expert-in-charge of photographs at Sotheby's. On behalf of the auction house, Garner acquired Beaton's archive - excluding all portraits of the Royal Family, and the five decades of prints held by Vogue in London, Paris and New York. Garner, who had almost singlehandedly invented the photographic auction, oversaw the archive's preservation and partial dispersal, so that Beaton's only tangible assets, and what he considered his life's work, would ensure him an annual income. The first of five auctions was held in 1977, the last in 1980.
By the end of the 1970s, Beaton's health had faded. He died on 18 January 1980, at Reddish House, his home in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, 4 days after his 76th birthday.
Queen Fawzia Fuad Chirine with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and their daughter, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi in Tehran during the Second World War
A Cecil Beaton design for Audrey Hepburn in the film My Fair Lady (1964), for which he won an Academy Award.
Portrait of Sir Roy Strong, Director and Secretary of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Bengali women fetching well water with earthenware pots
1944
Interests
ballet, operetta
Connections
Cecil Beaton had relationships with various men: his last lover was former Olympic fencer and teacher Kinmont Hoitsma. He also had relationships with women, including the actresses Greta Garbo and Coral Browne, the dancer Adele Astaire, the Greek socialite Madame Jean Ralli (Lilia), and the British socialite Doris Castlerosse (1900-1942).