Access Resources for Cecil Beaton: Staging Icons

Cecil Beaton, 1934, silver gelatine print, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery

Sir Cecil Beaton (1904–1980) was a British photographer, designer and artist, known for his portraits of celebrities, royalty and cultural figures. Rising to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s, he produced highly stylised images for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Beyond photography, Beaton enjoyed a distinguished career in theatre and film design, winning Academy Awards for Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964). His work was shaped by a deep sense of theatricality, using elaborate staging, props and costume to blur the line between reality and performance. A prolific and often waspish diarist, he saw beauty narrowly, and this permeated his creations, shaping public imagination to this day.

Presented in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, London, this exhibition explores Beaton’s first love – the stage – and how it influenced his groundbreaking photographic style. It also reveals Harewood’s own connections to Beaton and his world.

This black-and-white photographic self-portrait measures 24x19cm and shows Cecil Beaton, a white man aged 30, standing full-length in the frame. Beaton is positioned slightly to the left of the frame, standing with an upright and confident posture.

He leans his left elbow against a pillar with his right hand resting behind the top of his head. His body is turned slightly to one side with his hip pushing towards the right of the frame. Beaton’s right leg is crossed in front of his left, and his left arm rests at his side holding a used painter’s palette and several paintbrushes which are fanned out and pointing downwards.

Beaton faces towards the camera, chin pointing downwards but looking up, locking eyes directly with the audience with a slight smirk. His expression is calm and self-assured.

The sitter wears a day suit, with the sharp lines of his clothing creating a sense of refinement. There is a white folded pocket square in his left chest pocket. The jacket is double-breasted, and it is well tailored to his slim silhouette. The dark tones of his suit contrast against a white collar and a spotted tie, just visible below his neck. Beaton’s hair is short, side-parted and neatly arranged. It is combed to his right, with slight volume just above his forehead. The surrounding space is chaotic but extremely theatrical, filled with miscellaneous props and stage flats, designed to emphasise his career as a set designer. The pillar Beaton leans against has a mask hanging from it and, below, an unframed portrait of a woman pinned and hanging loosely from one corner. A pile of similar drawings are scattered on the floor in front of Beaton. There is a single mannequin foot and a bunch of flowers at the base of the wall.

To Beaton’s immediate right is a large stage light with its lampshade pointing towards the right side of the image. At his feet to the left lies another unframed portrait of a woman, and a variety of other props scattered about, including a bell jar containing flowers sitting on a square plinth, as well as various mannequin heads, feet and hands, strands of hair, as well as flowers and rope.

A stage backdrop with painted French chateau-style wall panelling stands at an angle directly behind Beaton, and a blank, white stage backdrop fills the right-hand side of the frame. There is bundled horsehair hanging from the white stage flat and a frayed rope draping over its corner, trailing across the dark floor alongside electrical wires and a light fitting. A second mask hangs from the rope on the white board near the centre right of the image. A large, upright spray of twig-like flowers and draped gauze-like fabric fill the space between the two stage flats, thrown into relief against a black backdrop. The portrait is lit by studio lighting, coming from the top right-hand side of the frame. As well as lighting, texture is created within the image through the miscellany of objects surrounding the sitter.

There is a strong sense of staging within the portrait, a technique that Beaton developed from an early age. In his early photography, he experimented with staging, dragging screens and furniture into the garden, and later scoured street markets and antique shops for unusual props to furnish his makeshift studios. These early creations eventually evolved into the real world of the stage, with Beaton going on to become an acclaimed set and costume designer alongside his career as a photographer.

Study of Princess Mary in her Wedding Dress by Frank Salisbury, 1922, chalk on paper, from the collection of Harewood House Trust.

Princess Mary (1897-1965) was the daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She moved to Harewood in 1930, following her marriage to Henry, Viscount Lascelles (1882-1947), future 6th Earl of Harewood. Princess Mary and Viscount Lascelles were married at Westminster Abbey on 28 February 1922. The ceremony was followed by a spectacular bridal procession through the streets of London.

As a boy, Cecil Beaton took the day off school to celebrate the occasion, joining the huge crowds that lined the carriage route. It was Beaton’s first taste of the theatre and spectacle of royalty, and a world in which he would one day immerse himself. In years to come, he would go on to photograph the Princess and visit her home at Harewood.

Princess Mary’s wedding was the first royal wedding to be covered by Vogue. The magazine described the bride as ‘a Fairy Princess with Youth, Beauty and Happiness.’ This portrait of Princess Mary is a ‘study’ for the official wedding painting.

Sketched in chalk, the study measures 50 x 35cm, and depicts Princess Mary, a white woman in her 20s, standing alone in her wedding dress. Although created as a preparatory sketch for the ceremonial oil painting which features multiple people and is set within Westminster Abbey, this preparatory study is very intimate, as it focuses attention on the bride herself.

The portrait is vertical in orientation and shows Princess Mary almost full length, cut short at her knees. She is positioned at the centre of the composition. Her body is turned towards the left, and her head faces gently in the same direction. Her gaze drifts into the distance rather than meeting the audience directly, giving her expression a calm, reflective quality.

Her posture is upright and poised, with her shoulders relaxed.

One arm hangs softly by her side, appearing to vanish into the fabric, while the other bends slightly, resting upon a surface the artist did not render for this study, the hand disappearing before reaching her fingers. She wears the wedding dress created by Reville of London, court dressmakers to Queen Mary. The gown falls in long, straight lines characteristic of early 1920s fashion, with a fashionable dropped waist marked by a narrow, draped, embellished belt sitting loosely around her hips.

Salisbury uses delicate white chalk to suggest the shimmering, patterned surface of the fabric rather than perfecting every detail. The dress appears luminous against the muted paper, its silver threads and beads catching the light in soft highlights.

A long, transparent veil falls from her head to well below her waist, framing her face before cascading down either side of her body in fine, almost weightless lines. Resting upon her short, dark yet luminous, softly waved hair, which just covers her ears, is the suggestion of a slender tiara, with white highlights creating the shape of orange blossom flowers, which has long been associated with weddings as a symbol of purity and good fortune. Beneath it, her face is gently shaded with subtle tones of grey and white chalk, with the deepest grey tones creating contrast on the right-hand side of her cheek and chin, which faces the audience. Her features are delicate, her lips petite but full, and her expression composed and serene.

Around her neck hangs a short, beaded pearl necklace that catches the light with small touches of white. The background remains largely undefined, consisting of broad areas of warm sepia paper. This simple background creates a setting that allows Mary to emerge almost as if from a dream-like mist. Loose chalk marks around the lower half of the composition reveal the artist’s working process, showing that this is a study rather than a completed artwork.

Using a restrained palette of greys, silvers and whites, Salisbury relies on the contrast between the luminous chalk and the deeper tone of the paper to convey texture, light and the delicate transparency of the veil. There is little dramatic shadow; instead, the figure is bathed in an even, gentle light that enhances the ethereal quality described by Vogue.

Although intended as a preparatory work, the drawing captures a complete impression of Princess Mary on her wedding day. Salisbury presents her as a figure of youthful dignity and refinement, conveying both the ceremonial importance of the occasion and the radiance of a bride on her wedding day.

In 1971, Cecil Beaton saw Princess Mary’s wedding dress at close quarters when visiting Harewood House. Beaton knew George, 7th Earl of Harewood, personally, and visited his home in Yorkshire and London.

Beaton’s visit to Harewood in 1971 was prompted by a ‘quest’ to find iconic royal garments that could feature in his upcoming fashion exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He found Queen Mary’s hats ‘in splendid condition’.

Beaton also found Princess Mary’s wedding dress, ‘just as it had been taken off’. Almost half a century after witnessing her wedding celebrations as a boy, it gave him the feeling of ‘small-town boy makes it’.

Princess Mary’s wedding dress and Queen Mary’s hats are on display in the East Bedroom. The silvery dress and… ft-long embroidered train is draped across the bed. Although in a very fragile condition today, its crystal beads still glitter and catch the light, illuminated by a spotlight. Queen Mary’s hats – which are all touques (or brimless hats) in different pastel colours – are displayed on hat stands of various heights placed on a Chippendale commode.

George, 7th Earl of Harewood by Cecil Beaton, late 1960s, silver gelatin print, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

George and Patricia, 7^th Earl and Countess of Harewood, were photographed by Cecil Beaton on numerous occasions. He knew the couple personally, visiting their homes in Yorkshire and London, and shared their passion for the performing arts.

Patricia, originally from Australia, was a musician and had enjoyed a successful modelling career. George (known personally and professionally as George Harewood) was a major figure in British musical life, serving as a director of the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Opera North, and as artistic director of the Edinburgh and Adelaide Festivals. He was also a governor of the BBC and president of the British Board of Film Classification.

About his career, George said: ‘I am no professional musician, more’s the pity, but I am a very good listener, and from that position I have derived so much pleasure I feel I should be daily on my knees giving thanks for what in sixty years has come my way.’

This black and white, half-length photographic portrait measuring 48 x 38cm depicts George seated in his study at his London home. The composition is closely framed around the sitter and uses dramatic light and shadow to create a dramatic and intimate atmosphere.

George sits at the centre of the frame, facing forward, his body turned only slightly towards the right. He looks directly towards the audience with a casual expression, appearing to be mid-conversation and beginning to smile.

He is a white man in his late 40s, with neatly combed dark hair which parts on the left side of his head. He has a slim build and wears a dark suit jacket over a white shirt and a neatly tied mid-toned satin tie. The dark tones of his clothing blend into the surrounding shadows. His shirt collar is a crisp bright white, drawing immediate attention to his facial expression. Both of George’s hands, highlighted by white shirt cuffs, are also visible in the lower quadrant of the frame. His left arm rests on a circular table that also has a white, rectangular ceramic dish on it.

Dominating the upper half of the composition is the sweeping, curved horn of an extra-large gramophone. Starting in the upper left quadrant of the image, the black horn stretches across and upwards out of the frame before curving sharply back into the frame and downwards along the right-hand edge of the frame. Its scale is so great that it casts a shadow across George’s forehead and eyes, partially obscuring his face. Rather than competing with the sitter, the gramophone becomes the defining feature of the portrait, representing the importance of music throughout the sitter’s life.

Behind him, bookshelves filled with music books occupy the left-hand side of the photograph, while to the right the wooden gramophone cabinet supports stacked papers, some held within a wire tray. A framed picture hangs on the wall above, which is only partially visible due to the horn. These details suggest a working study.

Displayed nearby this photographic portrait is the large gramophone featured in the image. It was made by E.M.G. and was one of the largest and most technically advanced models of its day, dating from around 1935. Its oversized horn dominates both the photograph and the small room in which it is on display.

The gramophone is distinguished by its exceptionally large black horn, which projects dramatically from its wooden cabinet before widening into a broad circular opening, measuring 91cm. The horn’s sweeping curve is elegant, and the polished wooden cabinet beneath reflects the simplicity and straight lines of mid-century design. The cabinet has blocks of storage in its front, for both large and small vinyl records to be stacked upright.

George recalled that, from his teenage years, he had used this gramophone avidly, describing it as one of his most treasured possessions. By placing it so prominently within the composition of the portrait of George, Beaton transforms the instrument into more than a personal belonging. It is a visual symbol of the sitter’s lifelong devotion to music.

Princess Margaret, 1950, by Cecil Beaton, original gelatin silver print

Cecil Beaton was appointed by the House of Windsor as a royal photographer in 1939. By then, photography had largely replaced painting as the main form of royal representation, though official portraits retained the formality of earlier times.

Beaton saw an opportunity to do something new. While respecting tradition, he turned to the theatrical tools at his fingertips, drawing on storytelling, costume and staging to reimagine royal imagery. Created alongside his work for Vogue, his royal photographs combined regal splendor with modern glamour.

Beaton was also working in rapidly changing times. During the Second World War, he was appointed an official war photographer, the work of which he later said he was most proud. At the same time, his fairytale images of the royal family evoked a world worth fighting for and his modern reinvention of regal identity spoke powerfully across a new world of global media.

This black-and-white photograph, measuring 52cm x 40 cm, depicts a three-quarter-length portrait of Princess Margaret (sister of Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II), and was released in celebration of her nineteenth birthday.

She is pictured in front of a theatrical painted backdrop showing a classical-style archway that opens onto a landscape beyond featuring hazy, dreamlike trees. People in 18th-century dress mill around in the foreground. It is a romantic scene inspired by a painting by French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau.

Princess Margaret is shown seated and positioned in the center of the image, framed by the archway behind her and abundant floral arrangements of lilies and hydrangeas to her left and right. Princess Margaret sits slightly turned to the left, her posture upright and poised. She looks directly at the viewer. Her hands rest gently in her lap, and her expression is calm and composed, with a faint, reserved smile. Her hair is styled neatly away from her face, parted to the side and falls into soft waves, typical of formal mid-20th-century royal portraiture.

She wears a dramatic white, full-length tulle gown that fills the lower part of the image, decorated with delicate sequin butterflies which shimmer in the light. It has a soft, light tone that contrasts with the slightly darker background. The neckline of the dress is low, sitting at the bottom of the Princess’ shoulders, revealing her neck and her signature five-strand pearl necklace, adding to a sense of refinement and formality. She also wears a pearl bracelet on her left arm.

The lighting of the photograph is soft and even, highlighting Princess Margaret’s face and the textures of her dress, while the background recedes slightly into shadow.

This styling presents Princess Margaret as both a fairytale princess and a rising style icon. The dress, designed by Norman Hartnell (the Queen’s dressmaker), was described by Beaton as ‘the apotheosis of all party dresses’. Overall, the portrait creates an impression of elegance and youth, as well as royal glamour, emphasizing both her status and her carefully styled appearance.

Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle by Cecil Beaton, 1963, silver gelatine print, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London

Cecil Beaton frequently photographed sitters in the costumes he had designed for the London stage or Hollywood films. It allowed him to create images of heightened drama and visual impact, bringing together the raw emotion of theatrical performance with extravagant costume and set design.

Beaton’s reputation as a set and costume designer reached its height in the 1950s and 1960s, when he won Academy Awards for his work on the film adaptation Gigi, made in 1958, and My Fair Lady, in 1964. His opulent theatrical style was ideally suited to Gigi’s decadence, while for My Fair Lady, Beaton drew on the monochrome images of Edwardian elegance that he had encountered in childhood.

This black and white photographic portrait measures 26 x 26.5 cm and depicts the 20^th-century actress, Audrey Hepburn. She is a white woman with dark hair and a slender figure. She is portraying the character of Eliza Doolittle in the Ascot scene of the 1963 film, My Fair Lady. Hepburn is situated in the centre of this full-length portrait. Her body is turned to the right, but her head faces forward, and she is looking directly at the camera.

She wears a striking over-the-top gown and hat, designed by Cecil Beaton himself. Her floor-length dress stretches from her chin, hugs her frame, and ends in a train which extends out to the left-hand side of the portrait. It is made of an intricate white lace, and is long-sleeved, ending at her wrists in splayed cuffs. There is a large striped bow covering her left-hand shoulder. At intervals up the dress, across her chest, hips and knees are areas of additional fabric with three dark and three light stripes, extending halfway across the width of her body.

Her right arm hangs loosely at the side of her body, clutching a lacy, voluminous, ruffled bag and her left arm is bent at the elbow, her hand resting on the end of a similarly voluminous, ruffled umbrella.

Her hat, which is larger than her torso, is placed at a 45-degree angle on her head, so that the wide brim obscures the upper right-hand side of her forehead from the audience. The hat is embellished with two large ostrich feather plumes, one dark to the rear of the hat, with a lighter one in front, as well as part of a large black and white striped bow which protrudes from the centre of the hat at the front. Below the hat, her dark hair fringes her face around the forehead and ears. Despite her character’s extravagant outfit, the expression on Hepburn’s face is nonchalant.

Behind Hepburn, spanning the width of the portrait, is a large, white, trellised fence, which is situated at the front of the frame on the right-hand side and recedes into the distance as it progresses across to the left-hand side. The fence has two rectangular, trellised pillars which are directly behind her. The left-hand pillar has a spherical finial atop it, but the top of the right-hand pillar sits outside of the portrait’s frame. The trellis that forms the fence is made up of a border of squares which are parallel to the top and bottom of the fence, with a panel in the centre of squares on the diagonal.

She stands on short grass, part of the set for the My Fair Lady film. By featuring Hepburn in her over-the-top Ascot gown, Beaton brings a comic edge to this image. When he first saw it on set, he was pleased that the dress was ‘funny, elegant and just right for the scene’.

Beaton wildly exaggerated the fashions from his childhood music hall favourites for My Fair Lady’s stylised, satirical reimagining of Edwardian society. Beaton wasn’t present to collect his Academy Award for his work on the film, but Hepburn wrote to him: ‘Darling C.B. Just to say how happy happy happy I am that you received your Oscar. I wish you could have heard the applause.’

Fred Astaire and Adèle Astaire (Lady Charles Cavendish) by Cecil Beaton, 1929, silver gelatin print, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London

Beaton’s first encounters with the world of dance came through visits to the Palace Music Hall in London with his father. A man of eclectic taste, he took Beaton to see a range of shows, from the high-kicking Palace Girls to modern interpretive dance and his first experience of the ballet. Beaton’s creative practice was shaped by these shows, and he went on to design sets and costumes for ballet and opera in London and New York, collaborating with leading choreographers and dancers such as Frederick Ashton, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.

This black and white portrait measuring 24.5 x 19.5 cm depicts two figures, a white man and a white woman, seated just to the left of the centre of the frame. These figures are Fred and Adèle Astaire, two dancer siblings who caused a sensation in London and New York in the 1920s. When Beaton saw one of their shows in 1924, he was so

overwhelmed by their nimble, graceful moves that he wrote in his diary ‘I adore the Astaires so much I nearly died in my stall’.

Both figures are seated, Fred on a kind of bench or sofa, Adèle on the arm of the same, meaning she is elevated above him by a head’s length and has her right arm casually draped across his shoulders. They both look out to the left-hand side of the frame, with large smiles on their faces. Fred’s mouth is slightly open as if in the process of laughing.

The bench or sofa that the figures sit on is cushioned on the seat, and the cushion has a shiny quality, indicating it is made of a satin or similar material. It has a striped, scalloped edging below, finished in a dark fringe. This scalloped pattern is repeated along the top of the backrest. The rest of the material is plain.

Fred Astaire has white skin and dark hair parted to the side and neatly smoothed across his head.

Adèle Astaire’s short dark curled hair finishes just below her ears. Her hair sweeps across her forehead from her right to left hand side, ending in a curling lock, a style that grew popular in the 1920s and became known as a ‘kiss curl’. She also wears a deep-coloured lipstick.

Both figures are dressed in tweed suits, with Fred’s slightly darker in colour than Adèle’s. He has a white collar and dark, striped tie which is visible between the lapels of the jacket. His legs are crossed, left over right, and his arms are clasped around his left knee. His tweed trousers finish just above the ankle, revealing his striped socks, but his shoes are outside of the frame.

Adèle’s suit jacket is open, revealing a plain garment underneath, and her suit features a skirt that finishes below her knee.

Behind the sitters are two walls of mirrors, joining in an edge behind Adèle Astaire. These mirrors are part of Condé Nast’s mirrored dressing room in New York. A favourite staging device of Beaton’s, the mirrors allowed him to show the pair from multiple angles. The effect produced by the mirrors means there are four heads of Adèle Astaire present in the photograph, all from different angles, and three of Fred Astaire’s head. Beaton’s camera flash can also be seen in the image in the top right-hand quadrant.

Greta Garbo by Cecil Beaton, 1946, silver gelatin print, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Throughout his career, Beaton photographed leading actresses of the stage and screen, using the camera to explore his own ideal of female beauty. In 1928 he declared ‘beauty’ to be ‘the most important word in the dictionary’ and his first publication, The Book of Beauty (1930), gave free rein to his vision. Vogue observed that he had established ‘a new cult of feminine beauty in England’.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Beaton visited Hollywood and was struck by the carefully manufactured glamour of its leading ladies. He wrote, ‘nowhere else in the world are there gathered so many conventionally beautiful people’. The 20th-century actress, Greta Garbo, a white woman, is featured in this black and white portrait, which measures 24.2 x 29.3 cm and is in landscape orientation.

Garbo was one of Beaton’s most passionate obsessions, pasting pictures of her into his scrapbooks, beneath which he scrawled her name repeatedly. This photograph was taken in May 1946, when, after years of refusal from Garbo, she granted Beaton a private sitting at New York’s Plaza Hotel. He described it as ‘one of the greatest events of my life’, despite the fact that he almost immediately betrayed her trust by sending the images straight to Vogue.

The portrait depicts Garbo’s head and shoulders in profile, and she is lying down with her face upturned towards the top of the frame. She appears to be lying on a dark velvet sofa which encompasses the whole background. Her shoulders, at the left-hand side of the frame, are clothed in a light-coloured woollen jumper with a ribbed turtleneck.

Garbo’s left-hand ear faces the camera, positioned just below the centre of the frame. Her hair fans out from her head in soft curls and takes up a significant portion of the portrait. The light catches on parts of her hair and individual strands are visible.

Only one of Garbo’s eyes is present in the portrait and is situated just above the centre of the frame. Her eye is closed, and dark eyelashes fan out from the eyelid. Garbo’s skin is perfectly smooth, highlighted by studio lighting emphasising the contours of her face and throwing shadow across her left cheek and jaw-line. Beaton had previously marvelled in his diary that Garbo’s skin was as ‘smooth as marble’. Nevertheless, in an era fixated with cosmetic perfection, Beaton retouched the image to erase any wrinkles that challenged his idealised vision of her. Tiny, hand-painted brush marks are present around Garbo’s eyes. He referred to this meticulous retouching as photography’s ‘silvery magic’.

Beaton’s portraits of his sitters’ flawless features, elegant style and rarified lifestyle did not aim to capture their true character but to construct a refined and idealised image.