A pioneer of fashion photography, writer, chronicler of social mores, illustrator, set and costume designer for film and theatre — Sir Cecil Beaton (1904–1980) wore many hats, revolutionizing the world of style while reflecting the ever-changing spirit of his time. No major figure of the 20th century is absent from his elite pantheon. He photographed Greta Garbo — with whom he had a tumultuous affair — Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth II, Maria Callas, Winston Churchill, Truman Capote, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, and many others. Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel were among his clients; he was himself photographed by David Bailey, a symbol of the swinging sixties, and admired by Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
Curated by Robin Muir, a photography historian and Vogue contributor, this retrospective at London’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is the first to deeply explore Beaton’s multifaceted oeuvre. It is also the continuation of a long relationship between Beaton and the gallery, which hosted his first solo exhibition in 1968. “Beaton’s first show here was a real tour de force,” explains Victoria Siddall, the institution’s director. “It was the first time the gallery exhibited photography and the first time representations of living models were shown on its walls. Queues formed around the building, and the show was extended twice.”
Entitled “Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World,” the new exhibition traces his beginnings, his meteoric rise, his fall from grace following an antisemitic remark, and his lasting legacy. It brings together 250 works, including photographs, letters, sketches, and costumes.
The fashion years
“The King of Vogue” — that was the nickname quickly bestowed on Beaton when he signed his first contract with Condé Nast and the American magazine in the 1920s. A self-taught photographer who studied history, art, and architecture at St. John’s College, Cambridge, Beaton immediately elevated fashion photography into a visual spectacle where fine art met modernity.
A child of the Edwardian era, a partygoer and eccentric dandy with a sharp pen and often biting wit, this visionary would remain “a creative force on the British and American stages of the 20th century,” above all in his ceaseless quest “for the beautiful, the enchanted, and the delightfully offbeat.” As the curator recounts, Beaton began by photographing his two sisters and his mother as models, first with a Brownie camera and later with a Kodak Folding A3.
At the time, photography was undergoing a radical transformation, competing with illustration in style magazines and gradually moving away from pictorialism toward a more minimalist modernism. Through his sense of staging, Beaton chose early on to unite the arts, experimenting with materials and light. “A marriage of Edwardian theatrical portraiture, emerging European surrealism, and the modernist approach of the great American photographers of the era — all filtered through a distinctly English sensibility,” explains Robin Muir.
Each of his photographs pushes the boundaries of visual representation, always striving for style, dream, glamour, and elegance rather than form. Beaton developed his creative process through his scrapbooks — moodboards before their time — compilations of photographs, drawings, posters, and newspaper clippings that he cut, pasted, and assembled.
Between war and royalty
Beaton’s work is imbued with a dramatic and romantic atmosphere, a sense of mystery and intensity, grace and elegance, distance and empathy. He was deeply influenced by the cultural impact of America, Britain, and France, all shaped by the two World Wars.
The exhibition explores 1920s and 1930s London, the era of the “Bright Young Things,” the hedonistic young aristocrats such as Stephen Tennant, Siegfried Sassoon, and the Sitwell siblings. It follows Beaton to New York and Paris during the Jazz Age and traces his path to Hollywood, where he won three Oscars.
The show also highlights the importance of his portraits of the British royal family, which he began photographing in the late 1930s. “On the eve of World War II, Beaton was defining the notion of modern monarchy,” notes Robin Muir. “His works are a burst of haute couture in vivid, dazzling colors.”
In the meantime, Britain’s Ministry of Information appointed him official war photographer, sending him around the globe. This body of work, which Beaton considered “the most important” and “most serious” of his career, allowed him to “renounce superficiality” while still mastering the art of sublimation in this “theatre of war.” His iconic 1940 photograph of three-year-old Eileen Dunne in a hospital bed, a victim of the Blitz, appeared on the cover of Life magazine. In 1953, he captured the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, immortalizing the spirit of a society rebuilding and transforming. He was knighted in 1971.
A theatre of imagination
Throughout his career, Cecil Beaton knew how to capture the zeitgeist of his time. This is precisely what the NPG retrospective — and the fascinating catalogue that accompanies it — reveals, immersing visitors in the atmosphere of his fifty-year career and the lives of those he encountered. His very first exhibition, held in 1927 at the Cooling Galleries on Bond Street, established him as “one of the most prominent fashion and portrait photographers of his generation.” His involvement in film, theatre, opera, and ballet soon reached its peak.
In Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi (1958) — a story about a teenager (Leslie Caron) transformed into a Belle Époque courtesan by two eccentric old women (Hermione Gingold and Isabelle Jeans) — Beaton’s set design earned him his first Academy Award.
With George Cukor’s My Fair Lady (1964), adapted from the stage musical, came another triumph. The film, centered on a snobbish professor (Rex Harrison) who transforms a flower girl into a society lady (Audrey Hepburn), brought Beaton two Oscars for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction.
The sheer breadth of Cecil Beaton’s work reveals his substantial contribution to the artistic life of London, New York, Paris, and Hollywood. He captured both anonymous faces and the great figures of the 20th century with the same mastery of visual language. A photographer, an artist, a gaze — above all, a witness who loved the performing arts and theatricality in all its forms, deliberately blurring the line between imagination and reality.
“Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World” is on view from October 9, 2025, to January 11, 2026, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The exhibition catalogue is available for £40.
