Photobiography by Cecil Beaton, 1951 1st Edition

Details

Description

From the inside dust jacket:
254 PAGES including frontispiece and 60 pages of photogravure illustrations

Cecil Beaton, internationally famous … Read more From the inside dust jacket:
254 PAGES including frontispiece and 60 pages of photogravure illustrations

Cecil Beaton, internationally famous as one of the finest photographic artists of the day, presents, for the first time, a full and intimate account of his crowded and successful twenty-five years' career.
His fascinating life-story, which is rich in sparkling anecdotes and amusing, though not always complimentary, "off-the-record" reminisces concerning the famous people he has met or photographed, is delightfully illustrated throughout with over sixty pages of photogravure reproductions of his own distinctive camera-studies.
Cecil Beaton's remarkable gift for portraying so vividly the character and personality of his sitters is abundantly evident in these superb photographs, some of which are now published for the first time. They include many charming studies of the Royal Family as well as arresting, unconventional portraits of Winston Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Walter Sickert, Picasso, Augustus John, the Sitwells, H.G. Wells, Lady Oxford and many other famous contemporaries.
Writing with skill and humor Cecil Beaton recalls his early boyhood "Box Brownie" experiments, when his two small sisters were the long-suffering but ever-patient models. The story of his early struggles and triumphs; his various techniques; his various techniques and influences; and of his first trip to America, where he landed unknown and left after a successful tour of Hollywood with a Vogue contract and a brilliant reputation to his credit, are most entertainingly told.
So, too, are his wartime experiences as an official M.O.I. photographer, covering the war fronts at home and in the Western Desert, Palestine, Persia, China and Burma, which make exciting reading. Many of his striking "on-the-spot" war photographs are included among the illustrations.
Here is a happy combination witty, interesting writing and lavish illustration of an unusually high standard that will appeal of lovers of good reading as much as it will to connoisseurs of good photography.
***
This is a rare collector's item book, and remains one of the pillars of an artist biography in the 20th century. Remains in good vintage condition.

Measurements
10" tall
7 1/4" wide
1" deep See less