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Cecil Beaton - Livres du Mois

Writer's picture: LiliumLilium



In honour of Cecil Beaton's birthday this month, 14th January, I have compiled a collection of books about his life and work. Sir Cecil Beaton CBE was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as costume designer and set designer for stage and screen. Cecil was a key member of the Bright Young Things, a term given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw flamboyant fancy dress parties, went on elaborate treasure hunts through nighttime London and Cecil photographed it all, capturing the interwar generation in all their glamour, frivolity and creativity.



 


The Wandering Years

1922-1939



"The Wandering Years is the first volume of Cecil Beaton’s Diaries, a personal memoir of the twentieth century, covering famous artists and photographers, political figures, socialites, the rich & famous and movie stars.



For almost as long as he could write, Cecil Beaton kept his diaries. They accumulated year after year, and from a formidable pile of notebooks he extracted enough to fill six volumes.



This first volume covers seventeen years from 1922 to 1939 and is a fascinating and disarming book. He describes his friendships with famous men and women, artists, writers, actors, film stars and celebrated socialites. Few franker autobiographical documents have seen the light of day."



 


Portraits & Profiles

Edited by Hugo Vickers



"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. Cecil Beaton’ s life spanned many worlds and these are captured here through his fabulous photographs and incisive observations."



 



Love, Cecil

A Journey with Cecil Beaton



"In Love, Cecil, Lisa Immordino Vreeland offers an evocative por­trait of this talented whirlwind whose creative work captured many facets of the 20th century. Using photography, drawings, letters, and scrapbooks by Beaton and his contemporaries, along with excerpts from his sparkling diaries and other writ­ings, Immordino Vreeland brings his spirit to life in a way that no previous book has been able to do.



Immordino Vreeland organizes her book around the circles of Beaton’s daily life: the people who inspired and influenced him, his colorful friends, his fellow photographers, his Hollywood conquests, his wartime service, and his English roots. This cavalcade offers a shimmering vision of high style, but it also captures often-troubled souls struggling to create the open, tolerant, creative worlds of art and culture that we have inherited today."




 


Cecil Beaton

Hugo Vickers



"Cecil Beaton was one of Britain's greatest cultural icons - not just as a photographer capturing some of the most celebrated portraits of the 20th century but also as designer of the iconic sets and costumes for the films My Fair Lady and Gigi.



In 1980, Beaton personally chose Hugo Vickers to be his biographer, entrusting him with his diaries and the entire body of letters he had written - both personally and professionally - over the course of his life. Drawing on five years of intensive research and interviews with the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, Princess Grace of Monaco and Sir John Gielgud, Vickers' biography was an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1985. Exploring Beaton's metamorphosis from being the child of a staid middle-class family to an international figure mingling with the glittering stars of his age, the biography also details his great love for Greta Garbo and reveals his private sense of failure that the success he always wanted - as a playwright - eluded him."



 


The Book of Beauty



"The Book of Beauty is a book by Cecil Beaton, his first published book of photographs in 1930. In his concept of beauty, Beaton, with sketches and photographs, highlights actresses such as Tallulah Bankhead and Anna May Wong but also modernist literary figures like Edith Sitwell and Nancy Cunard."









 


Cecil Beaton’s Scrapbook



"The Scrapbook is Cecil Beaton's second book, published in 1937. Beaton's photographs and drawings, drawn from the author's numerous scrap albums, are collected together and accompanied by witty essays on subjects such as Christmas, Winter House Party, Mrs Simpson: 20th November 1936, Marlene Dietrich, Garbo, Hats, New York, Dubrovnik, The Russian Ballet and Coronation."








 


Cecil Beaton at Home



"Cecil Beaton was one of twentieth- century Britain's Renaissance men: photographer, costume designer, set designer, playwright, creator of fashion fabrics, and writer on raffine interiors and the personalities who inhabited them. He also happened to be a fine interior decorator. Cecil Beaton at Home focuses on two homes dear to Beaton's heart Ashcombe House, near the Wiltshire village of Tollard Royal, and Reddish House, located in Broad Chalke, another village in the same county as well as London's Pelham Place and Beaton's New York hotel suites.



Simultaneously a retreat, an inspiration, a photographer's studio, and a stage for impressive entertaining, Beaton s country homes also fuelled his passion for art, gardening, and delight in village life. Against his often-extravagant interiors, Beaton's private life unfolds his unique talent for self-promotion, desire for theatricality, and uncertain pursuit of love. This lavishly illustrated visual biography brings together original photographs, artworks, and possessions from his interiors to present an intimate picture of Beaton's extraordinary life."



 

I hope you have found something of interest amongst this collection of books, but if not, there may be something more to your tastes in the Compendium's Library.


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