Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was a photographer, a fashion illustrator, a costume designer, a social caricaturist, a writer, a stylist, a decorator, a dandy, a renaissance man, a rebel but an aristocrat at the same time, an artist, a provocateur, an expressionist, and an aesthete; the list could go on. To describe Beaton, his career and his works in a few words would be nearly impossible, but showing it? That’s definitely more effective. Until 11 January, London’s National Portrait Gallery invites visitors to experience the world of the British photographer and the path that led to his success.
Beaton is definitely a great example of “if you want, you can”. As he admitted in his diaries, he started with “very little talent but a lot of strong ambition”, and perhaps sometimes that’s exactly the key; sometimes ambition can be as powerful as genius. Almost entirely self-taught, Beaton started experimenting with the camera, using his mother and sister as models, soon building a style that was entirely his own. His work became instantly recognisable—elaborate, theatrical, imaginative—and made him one of the defining figures of twentieth-century fashion, celebrated for his visual language, his ability to capture personality and status, and his boundless fantasy.
Think of an artist like Rosalia, who in her new album LUX sings in thirteen different languages and is able to shift between different genres. Beaton was doing something similar through his camera almost a century ago. He “spoke” in multiple visual dialects: fashion, reportage, cinema and society portraiture, reinventing himself with each new medium. Every photograph was a sentence in a language only he could write.
Walking around the National Portrait Gallery, we stumble across all kinds of personalities: socialites and aristocrats, Hollywood icons and soldiers, workers and political figures, and even the Queen. From portraying the Bright Young Things, those dazzling, hedonistic socialites who ruled the 1920s tabloids (think Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf or Serena van der Woodsen, but swapping martinis for champagne and cigarette holders) to his photojournalism during the war and his contribution to iconic movies like My Fair Lady, which earned him an Oscar for costume and set design, Beaton’s career proves what we already said at the beginning: he was an artist with range.
Modigliani used to say, “When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes,” and Beaton seemed to have that same intuitive gift. His images were never just about surface beauty; they mirrored the identity of the person in front of him, making them feel closer to us, alive, more real and recognisable. He completely changed the way we construct images: with his imaginative backdrops, artistic language, and playful elegance, he transformed portraiture into storytelling. He wasn’t just the King of Vogue; he was the architect of a new visual language, one that continues to echo today.
