Cecil Beaton

Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in Hampstead, north London, and died on 18 January 1980. The son of Ernest Walter Hardy Beaton, a prosperous timber merchant, and his wife Esther Sisson, Beaton grew up in a family with deep roots in the timber trade, which his grandfather Walter Hardy Beaton had established through the firm Beaton Brothers Timber Merchants and Agents. His father was also an amateur actor who had met his mother while performing in a play. Beaton had two sisters, Nancy and Barbara, and a brother, Reginald. He was educated at Heath Mount School, St Cyprian's School in Eastbourne, and Harrow School before attending St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied history, art, and architecture, leaving in 1925 without a degree.

Beaton's interest in photography began in childhood, when his nanny introduced him to the craft using a Kodak 3A Camera. He practiced by photographing his sisters and mother, and eventually submitted work to London society magazines, sometimes writing under a pen name to recommend his own photographs. At Cambridge, he continued developing his skills and secured the publication of a portrait in Vogue through university contacts. After a brief period working in the family timber business and then for a cement merchant in Holborn, he mounted his first exhibition at the Cooling Gallery in London under the patronage of Osbert Sitwell. He subsequently traveled to New York, where he built a professional reputation and secured a contract with Condé Nast Publications for exclusive photographic work.

Beaton became a staff photographer for both Vogue and Vanity Fair, and his fashion photographs and society portraits defined much of the visual style associated with the 1930s. He photographed celebrities in Hollywood and worked alongside contemporaries including George Hoyningen-Huene and Horst. In 1938, he was dismissed from American Vogue after anti-Semitic phrases were discovered embedded in an illustration he had submitted. He returned to England, where the Queen recommended him to the Ministry of Information. During the Second World War, he served as a war photographer, documenting the damage caused by the German Blitz. Among his most enduring wartime images was a photograph of three-year-old Blitz victim Eileen Dunne recovering in hospital. He also photographed the Royal Family extensively throughout his career, including the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and a portrait of Princess Margaret in a cream Dior dress for her 21st birthday in 1951. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was his preferred royal subject.

From 1930 to 1945, Beaton leased Ashcombe House in Wiltshire. In 1947, he purchased Reddish House in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, a 17th-century property set in approximately 2.5 acres of gardens, where he undertook significant interior renovations including adding rooms and extending the parlour. He remained there until his death and is buried in the parish church graveyard. In 1968, the National Portrait Gallery in London mounted its inaugural photographic exhibition, Beaton Portraits 1928–68, the first retrospective of a living photographer's work held at a British national museum. The exhibition drew over 80,000 visitors and subsequently traveled to the United States, where it was displayed as 600 Faces by Beaton 1928–69 at the Museum of the City of New York in 1969, an engagement that was extended by a month due to its popularity.

Originally from London, Beaton brought his design work to Broadway, making his first appearance there in 1946. His Broadway credits include the play Lady Windermere's Fan. His stage work earned him four Tony Awards, including Tony Awards for Best Costume Design in 1955, 1957, and 1970. In addition to his stage accolades, Beaton received three Academy Awards over the course of his career in film and stage design. His influence extended to subsequent generations of photographers, including Angus McBean and David Bailey, both of whom worked alongside or were shaped by Beaton's methods and aesthetic during their own careers.