sitting for Cecil

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'All artists speak the same language , so photographers should be considered in terms of artists...' CB

 Mary Cushing Astor by Cecil Beaton

I've often looked longingly at my Cecil Beaton tomes and sighed-what beautiful photographs.

What gorgeous women, what handsome men-the sitters.

What gorgeous backdrops, the settings.

I love Cecil Beaton.

& that must be one of the many reasons I loved the return of Upstairs Downstairs. Cecil visits the residents of 165 Eaton Place in the last episode of the series. Well played by Christopher Harper, Cecil is there to photograph Lady Agnes Holland & her sister Lady Persie. Beaton brings all his charms- mostly spent on "Cook". Beaton also brings his own props to create the perfect setting for the perfect sitting. 

Baba Beaton, Cecil Beaton's sister & one of his favorite sitters

I've noticed the settings- painterly like. It's interesting to note Beaton never had what he called a studio-his idea was not to have one,certainly unusual in the day . He preferred to use his mother's drawing room, later- his own residences or those of his sitters-and true to fiction- he would bring props from drawing rooms and later drawing from his own stash of props expressly for his portrait work. Not one to wait and see what his sitter's rooms might be like-Cecil was prepared, fully armed with the perfect props to create the perfect portrait-screens, settees, silk, netting, pedestal, vase, roses and the like.

Oh--- 
& cellophane.
cellophane curtained, draped, twisted, tied and tasseled.

He staged.

He draped.

Norma Shearer by Cecil Beaton

Soap Suds by Cecil Beaton

'My sitters were more likely to be somewhat hazily discovered in a bower or grotto of silvery blossom or in some Hades of polka dots.' CB

The haze of Beaton's tinsel and cellophane props,his costumed & gowned sitters, made Beaton's subjects the envy of every aristocrat. When Beaton sends "Cook" a copy of her portrait-a vision- she looks at it admiringly and declares, “I could be aristocracy!”

Cecil Beaton as Major-General FH Seymour, The Groom of the Robes, at 'The Opera Ball', Metropolitan Opera House New York, April 1933. NPG

Beaton  was known as one of the foremost of the Society photographers by 1930. His own special signature became the doubling up of his sitters- twins, sisters or debutantes or a single sitter reflected in a piano top, mirror or some other clever Beatonesque ploy.

 Baba Beaton

 Paula Gellebrand by Cecil Beaton

 Marlene Dietrich by Cecil Beaton

'We all owe a great debt to Cecil, for keeping the idea of style alive.'  David Bailey

Drawing pictorial paradigms  from Watteau, Fragonard, Gainsborough and Piranesi ,Beaton blew up his work to create backdrops for his photographs. His idea- grandeur without the hauteur. Beaton photographed the Queen and other Royals with these scenes in the background. Not just for the Royals, Beaton used them to create the noble aristocratic image dear "Cook" craved so.

 Doris Duke by Cecil Beaton

image borrowed from Colette van den Thillart at Nicky Haslam Design

 The Famous Beauties Ball, 1931.Miss Baba Beaton (second from left) surrounded by Jess Chattock, Nancy Mitford, and Carol Prickard in enormous pageant dresses. by Cecil Beaton

"As far as possible I avoid allowing modern clothes to appear in a photograph... I try to get my sitters to wear some kind of costume that has withstood the criticism of time-that is located amidst a decor of rosebuds, chiffons & turtle doves."- CB

Marquise de Casa Maury by Cecil Beaton

In one of the scenes from Upstairs, Pritchard the butler confides to the Rose that above stairs there is a “contretemps regarding pastel tones.”  Lady Persie is off  to change her dress &  wear a different shade of lipstick to harmonize with her sister's appearance. Beaton not just fearing to date his work- but to he desired it to escape time.  Friends, painter Rex Whistler and David Garnett, novelist, were idealizing the era they lived in-holding time at bay. It was Beaton's way of shunning Modernism- as he stated it was his attempt 'to decorate a machine with dog roses.'   Some of my favorite Beaton photographs are portraits: A series of photographs of Paula Gellibrand, Marquise de Casa Maury  & photographs of Edith Sitwell.

Both so different- but both exuding that Beatonesque haze of timelessness that few can match.

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