Celebrated photographer, award-winning
theatre and costume designer, illustrator, diarist, dandy and intimate of
royalty – interest in Cecil Beaton and his world is greater than ever. Andrew
Ginger, who with his company Beaudesert, curated the highly acclaimed Cecil
Beaton exhibition at Salisbury Museum this summer, has collaborated with Sibyl
Colefax & John Fowler to create ‘BEATON at BROOK STREET ’ at their historic Mayfair premises.
CECIL BEATON AT HOME – TOWN & COUNTRY
will be presented in The Yellow Room, contrasting Beaton’s London home, Pelham
Place, with Ashcombe and Reddish, his Wiltshire country houses, through vivid
room set recreations which reunite many of Beaton’s previously unseen
photographs, artworks and possessions.
The exhibition also marks the launch of a
new book, CECIL BEATON: PORTRAITS AND PROFILES, by Hugo Vickers, Beaton’s
official biographer and literary executor. There will be a themed display
throughout the Brook Street
showrooms of photographs from the book, together with other portraits and
artworks from private lenders, which have never been exhibited before.
Many rare and unique photographs are
included from The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s, who have generously
supported this exhibition.
18 November to 5 December 2014, Monday to
Friday, 9.30am – 5.30pm
Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler Ltd, 39 Brook Street ,
Mayfair, London , W1K 4JE
ADMISSION FREE
Cecil Beaton Self Portrait 1938
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, Sotheby’s
This beautiful collection of fabulous
photographs and incisive pen portraits captures the world of Cecil Beaton, one
of the most celebrated portrait photographers of the twentieth century.
Cecil Beaton: Portraits and Profiles
combines Beaton’s photographic and pen portraits. Beaton’s portraits offer
insight, beauty, witty observations and a fascinating glimpse into his world.
His images often flattered but his diaries and journals didn’t necessarily
follow suit and he was described by Jean Cocteau as ‘Malice in
Wonderland’.
Included are stars of music, fashion,
society, stage and screen. From Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, Coco Chanel and
Princess Grace through to Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor and Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
Of Audrey Hepburn, Beaton said ‘she is like
a portrait by Modigliani where the various distortions are not only interesting
in themselves but make a completely satisfying composite’.
Marilyn Monroe ‘romps, she squeals with
delight, she leaps on the sofa. It is an artless, impromptu, high-spirited,
infectiously gay performance. It will probably end in tears’.
Marlon Brando was ‘pallid as a mushroom,
smooth-skinned and scarred, with curved feminine lips and silky hair, he seems
as unhealthy as a lame duck. Yet his ram-like profile has the harsh strength of
the gutter’
Cecil Beaton’s life spanned many worlds and
these are captured here through his fabulous photographs and incisive
observations.
1 comment:
I always enjoy a visit to the Yellow Room whenever I am in London, so I regret that I will miss this exhibition. I would especially love to see the recreated bed.
_ The Devoted Classicist
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