Cecil Beaton: The New York Years

By: Ashley Tjan | November 15, 2011 | Photography

From the Jazz Age of the 1920s through the Pop era of the 1960s, Manhattan’s artistic and social circles was enraptured and immortalized by British-born photographer and designer Cecil Beaton (1904-80). The London-based artist traveled extensively and enjoyed lengthy sojourns in Manhattan where he lived in lavish hotel suites reflecting his sophisticated taste.  In 1969 the Museum of the City of New York presented his photographs in an exhibit titled “600 Faces” where Hilton Kramer, then art critic for The New York Times, criticized his photos for being overly familiar with “the vicissitudes of fashion, celebrity and the vagaries of publicity.”  It is at this same institution that, many years later, curator Donald Albrecht has organized Cecil Beaton: The New York Years.  The exhibit showcases Beaton’s outstanding body of work including photographs, drawings, and costumes to visually document his influence in a myriad of fields and on New York’s cultural life.

Born to a British lumber merchant, Beaton had already established himself in London working for British Vogue when he first visited New York in 1928 as a 24-year-old creative prodigy. Almost immediately he began his long association with the American edition of Vogue as a photographer, illustrator and writer. As a fashion photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, he shot portraits of the upper class, while becoming a celebrity in his own right. 

Beaton had a tendency for depicting a world untarnished with the vulgarities of common life even during the years of the Great Depression and World War II.  His talent lay not with pushing boundaries but with reproducing a sense of immediacy and accessibility.

Beaton’s limitless creativity and enthusiasm led him to continuously venture in new arenas, from fashion and portrait photography to costume and scenic design for Broadway, ballet, and opera.  In each of his pursuits he was set apart from the rest by his personal aesthetic. If memories of Beaton have too soon been forgotten, it may be because he spread himself too thin. His affliction was that of the multitalented. Or perhaps he was just born before his time.

“Cecil Beaton: The New York Years,” continues through Feb. 20, at the Museum of the City of New York; 1220 Fifth Avenue, at 103rd Street, (212) 534-1672, mcny.org.

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