Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World
National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H OHE
9 October 2025 – 11 January 2026
Born in 1904, son of a wealthy timber merchant, educated at Harrow and Cambridge. His fascination with glamour, high society and photography started at an early age. His career took off in the mid 1920s, contributing illustrations and photographs to Vogue magazine. He was known for his fashion photographs and society portraits, including the Royal Family. Moved to New York in 1928 where he landed a full-time position at Condé Nast. Reflecting the prewar anti Semitism of some of the society in which he moved, he was fired from American Vogue in 1938, because he included an anti-Semitic slur in an illustration. Returning from the USA he was recommended by the Queen as a Ministry of Information home front war photographer, where his images of Blitz damage restored his reputation. Post war his career resumed, as a society photographer, working for Vogue, and included the huge success of his stage and screen designs for My Fair Lady.
Cecil Beaton’s Kodak 3A folding camera. Cecil was given this camera on his 12th birthday in 1916.
Princess Emeline de Broglie, Gelatin silver print, 1928. Brilliance (Clarita de Uriburu) Gelatin silver print, 1930. The Hon. Mrs Reginald Fellowes (Daisy Fellowes) Gelatin silver print, 1928. Polka Dots (Tilly Losch in hat by Charles James) Gelatin silver print, 1930.
Lady Dunn and Lady Sibell Lygon in dresses by Worth and Victor Stiebel. From an original gelatin print of 1932. Mrs Carl Bendix (Daisy Bendix) in costume for the Galaxy Ball, 1929. From an original gelatin print of 1929. Debutantes of 1928. (Lady Georgiana Curzon, Lady Anne Wellesley, Deirdre Hart-Davis and Nancy Beaton) From an original gelatin print of 1928. In 1968 the NPG staged a Beaton Portraits retrospective, the first solo show for a living photographer. Fashion is Indestructible (Elizabeth Cowell in suit by Digby Morton) From an original gelatin print of 1941.
His photograph of a young blitz victim appeared on the cover of the Times and Life magazine, which it is suggested helped to persuade the USA to join the war effort.
Spring (Ballgown by Irene against painting by Jackson Pollock, Betty Parsons gallery, New York) From an original transparency of 1951.
Princess Margaret in Dior ballgown for her 21st birthday, from an original transparency of 1951. A controversial choice in post-war Britain where rationing had just ended.
Gary Cooper, Toned gelatin silver print, 1929. Beaton photographed not only high society but the stars of the arts, stage and screen, including Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon.
The exhibition comes to a halt with Beaton’s Academy Award winning designs for My Fair Lady.
Eliza Doolittle’s dress for the Embassy Ball. Designed by Cecil Beaton made by Bermans, 1958.
