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Overview
Sir Cecil Beaton (1904—1980) was one of the most renowned photographers of his generation. A major contributor to Vogue and Vanity Fair in Britain, France, and America, Beaton captured for posterity such admired subjects as artists Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and Richard Avedon; actresses Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo; statesmen and politicians Winston Churchill and Robert Kennedy; and, of course, Britain's Royal Family. This sumptuously illustrated book—published on the centenary of Beaton's birth—brings together many of his evocative portraits in celebration of his remarkable life and work. Gifted in an extraordinary range of fields, Beaton was noted for his flamboyant sense of style. His portraits, fashion photographs, book jacket designs, war reportage, designs for theater and film, and diaries mark him as one of the first international multi-media artists. This book features an illustrated essay discussing the wide range of the photographer's career as well as a portfolio of 160 beautiful reproductions of his most famous portraits and an extended illustrated chronology. Beaton: Portraits is an exciting and comprehensive look at a tour-de-force photographer and is an essential book for anyone interested in photography, fashion, or twentieth-century style and design.Author Biography: Terence Pepper is Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London; Peter Conrad is Tutor of English at Christ Church, Oxford; Sir Roy Strong, former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, is also the author of The Artist and the Garden, published by Yale University Press.
This book accompanies a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London (Feb. 5 to May 31, 2004)
Synopsis
Sir Cecil Beaton (1904—1980) was one of the most renowned photographers of his generation. A major contributor to Vogue and Vanity Fair in Britain, France, and America, Beaton captured for posterity such admired subjects as artists Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and Richard Avedon; actresses Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo; statesmen and politicians Winston Churchill and Robert Kennedy; and, of course, Britain's Royal Family. This sumptuously illustrated book—published on the centenary of Beaton's birth—brings together many of his evocative portraits in celebration of his remarkable life and work. Gifted in an extraordinary range of fields, Beaton was noted for his flamboyant sense of style. His portraits, fashion photographs, book jacket designs, war reportage, designs for theater and film, and diaries mark him as one of the first international multi-media artists. This book features an illustrated essay discussing the wide range of the photographer's career as well as a portfolio of 160 beautiful reproductions of his most famous portraits and an extended illustrated chronology. Beaton: Portraits is an exciting and comprehensive look at a tour-de-force photographer and is an essential book for anyone interested in photography, fashion, or twentieth-century style and design.
Author Biography: Terence Pepper is Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London; Peter Conrad is Tutor of English at Christ Church, Oxford; Sir Roy Strong, former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, is also the author of The Artist and the Garden, published by Yale University Press.
This book accompanies a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London (Feb. 5 to May 31, 2004)
The New York Times - David Kaufman
The handsome reproductions in Beaton Portraits, by Terence Pepper, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, include a superbly androgynous Katharine Hepburn; Marlon Brando before his breakthrough in ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' looking, improbably, like a British schoolboy with long tousled hair; Francis Bacon appearing every bit as alarming as a figure in one of his paintings. Here also is an irresistibly seductive -- and remarkably hirsute -- Yul Brynner. In an included essay, Peter Conrad, who teaches English at Oxford University, persuasively argues that although Beaton glorified his subjects, he also ''glimpsed a reality that belied the fiction he was helping to create.''
Editorials
David Kaufman
The handsome reproductions in Beaton Portraits, by Terence Pepper, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, include a superbly androgynous Katharine Hepburn; Marlon Brando before his breakthrough in ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' looking, improbably, like a British schoolboy with long tousled hair; Francis Bacon appearing every bit as alarming as a figure in one of his paintings. Here also is an irresistibly seductive -- and remarkably hirsute -- Yul Brynner. In an included essay, Peter Conrad, who teaches English at Oxford University, persuasively argues that although Beaton glorified his subjects, he also ''glimpsed a reality that belied the fiction he was helping to create.''— The New York Times