Photographer - Cecil Beaton

Photographer

We've only mentioned society portraitist Cecil Beaton in passing so far. Cecil was born in 1904 and after a patchy education at Harrow and Cambridge expanded an interest in photography into a decades-long profession. He became well known for his portraits of the 'Bright Young Things' — like Stephen Tennant — in the 20s and 30s. He also worked for Vogue and Vanity Fair as a staff contributor. In 1931 he met fellow photographers George Hoyningen-Huene and Horst P. Horst, exchanging ideas that would set a sophisticated aesthetic for fashion photography that reverberates today.

As with Edward Steichen, our Photographer series introduces the photographer and a sample of their portraits from a male perspective. It does seem that every photographer worth their salt in the first half of the twentieth century took a portrait of Winston Churchill.

(Yes, that's Cecil Beaton walking along the street with Greta Garbo below.)

Subjects

Stephen Tennant

Sir Winston Churchill

Gary Cooper

Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais