Dear Shaded Viewers,
Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) was an illustrator, author and diarist, theatre costume and scenery designer, film designer, fashion artist, traveller, and of course photographer. Sadly, the one thing he wished to be remembered for was as a successful writer of plays but it as a playwright he had his one real failure. His photography that he is celebrated for, and which continues to enchant, fascinate and delight us, he was somewhat ambivalent about. Yet from his childhood snaps to his final amazing pictures for Vogue Paris a year before he died his capturing of fashion and faces is extraordinary.
In early March 2020 Robin Muir curated a beautiful exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery entitled “Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things”. As the Covid pandemic hit, three days later the gallery closed and the exhibition was doomed. Now in October 2025 a much larger exhibition across several gallery rooms again wonderfully curated by Mr Muir entitled “Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World” has opened and it is a delight.
We have the opportunity to see a small boy evolve into a rather slender youth whose love affair with the camera was both as model and photographer in his early years. Somewhat precious, he poses for famous photographers of the day or sets about elaborate self portraits, a habit he never entirely grew out of. Yet all this is incidental his work, recording the beautiful, the striking and the special of his times continues across the decades.
Beaton had an instinctive ability to focus on the sitter’s personality, their style and he records them at their pinnacle; artificial and posed, yes, but also somehow at their most revealing and personal. Mona Harrison Williams emerging from scrolls of white paper, Stephen Runciman engrossed in a tulip, Vogue fashion editor Madge Garland poised against an Art Deco pattern or dancer Tilly Losch wearing spots pictured in front of more spots. He takes pictures the same way a collector pins down and displays objects, it is about a singular focus and attention which doesn’t directly show emotion but triggers it for the viewer. There is a ruthless chic to so much of his work and often the stories of his subject being placed in great discomfort seems obvious from the image. Edith Sitwell was photographed lying down, playing a harp, in bed, in intense close up in old age, and so on, yet he captures Dame Edith in a manner no other photographer did.
The exhibition offers many glimpses into Cecil Beaton’s private and in some ways rather sad, private life, both the object of his love Peter Watson and his rival for that love, Oliver Messel, his, to my mind slightly odd, fling with Greta Garbo, and his great friends like Rex Whistler so tragically killed in 1944 at the age of 39. Beaton’s sisters who he endlessly photographed during their youth, although in later years he found them less agreeable. His mother who he looked after until the very end, and his adored Aunt Jessie whose style always inspired him.
Of course, the exhibition includes Audrey Hepburn and “My Fair Lady,” possibly Beaton’s pinnacle of international fame and glamour, something he never shied away from. Yet in the end, as a lifelong admirer of Cecil Beaton, I think he never fully realised exactly what he wanted, he acted on the stage, he wrote his play, he took up oil painting, wrote, he attempted more plays and stories, and at times he denigrated his photography, perhaps this searching was what drove him forwards. Photographing the newest stars, be they pop or art, or indeed both, talking to Mick Jagger or Andy Warhol, running towards the latest bright young thing, he was never fully satisfied it seems.
This exhibition would have perhaps reassured him that forty five years after his death a jammed gallery resounded with exclamations and smiles, recognition of old favourites, surprise at discoveries, a reminder of how his work resonates and is found in so much photography, especially fashion, today. His fame is secure for posterity, and we must thank Robin Muir and the National Portrait Gallery for offering us the extravagant and exhilarating exhibition of 250 items to brighten the winter months.
Later,
Tony
