Cecil Beaton

Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton CBE was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as costume designer and set designer for films and the theatre.

As soon as you begin looking into photography, film, theatre, fashion, the Second World War, or, almost anything that happened in the 20th century, you meet Cecil Beaton. And then you go on meeting him because his influence has been so far-reaching.

Over a nearly 70-year career, he filled hundreds of sketchbooks, wrote hundreds of thousands of words, designed hundreds of costumes and film sets and exposed thousands of rolls of film of such distinction that his thoughts and images have remained in almost perpetual circulation. 

He was fueled, he once said, by the fear of being ordinary. The idea that he might be thought of as such, tormented him, as did his ambition, which was furious and all-consuming and made him a terrible social climber. And climb he did. But this was someone who had real gravitas, who could be a vibrant person from the 20s through the 70s.

He stepped into every one of those decades and made himself relevant.

How many people today are capable of this?

Who is doing this?