{"id":14471,"date":"2025-11-15T11:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T10:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/?p=14471"},"modified":"2025-11-15T11:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T10:21:12","slug":"cecil-beatons-fashionable-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/cecil-beatons-fashionable-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecil Beaton\u2019s Fashionable World"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, Bright Young Things, November 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The National Portrait Gallery held an exhibition of Cecil Beaton\u2019s photographs in 1968.  It was the Gallery\u2019s first ever photo exhibition, the first time it featured living people and the first show of a living British photographer.  And it was the first major photographic exhibition I saw in London \u2013 I still have the book published to accompany it, The Best of Beaton.  <\/em>A trip to see the current show, \u2018Cecil Beaton\u2019s Fashionable World\u2019 was something of a sentimental journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the 1968 exhibition, this one is dedicated <\/em>to Beaton’s contributions to fashion and portrait photography. The work embraces the Jazz Age and the Bright Young Things, high fashion from the 1950s and the unforgettable success of\u00a0My Fair Lady<\/em>. Over 200 exhibits include photographs, letters, portrait sketches, fashion illustration and costume.\u00a0 Here are the great and iconic figures of the 20th<\/sup> century, Marilyn Monroe to Marlon Brando, Queen Elizabeth II to Salvador Dali.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, Lilyan Tashman, November 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Beaton can sometimes be seen as a dandyish, rather dilettante figure, but that\u2019s a cultivated image.  Not born poor by any means, his background was less aristocratic that he might have wished and he was a Class A snob. In the section called \u2018The Essence of Artifice\u2019, a quote from a schoolboy diary records: \u2018I only want to be Cecil Beaton.  I don\u2019t want people to know me as I really am, but as I am trying and pretending to be.\u2019  Behind the image, hard work was allied with creative flair and consummate technical skill to produce often stunning results.  The hard work included cultivating contacts and creating flattering images of debutants, minor aristocracy and wives of people with influence. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, Audrey Hepburn, November 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One should not go to this exhibition expecting it to be something that it is not, a comprehensive overview of Beaton\u2019s work: it is all surface and image, beautiful prints glamourise beautiful people, even war looks seductive.\u00a0 It\u2019s a world of brilliance and wealth conjured from and for an elite during the decades when the majority of the population faced great hardship.\u00a0 \u2018Cecil Beaton\u2019s Fashionable World\u2019 is a nostalgic look back to a time much of which is on the edges of living memory.\u00a0 It\u2019s a feast of beauty \u2013 but a feast comprising entirely of desserts. \u00a0My recollect of the 1968 exhibition is that there is more to savour in Beaton’s. This is an exhibition in tune with our age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Portrait Gallery held an exhibition of Cecil Beaton\u2019s photographs in 1968.  It was the Gallery\u2019s first ever photo exhibition, the first time it featured living people and the first show of a living British photographer.  And it was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1131],"class_list":["post-14471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cecil-beaton"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9SdXd-3Lp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14477,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14471\/revisions\/14477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}