The stylish and extravagant world of the “Bright Young Things” of 1920s and ’30s London, seen through the eye of renowned British photographer Cecil Beaton
In 1920s and ‘30s Britain, Cecil Beaton used his camera and his larger-than-life personality to mingle with that flamboyant and rebellious group of artists, writers, socialites and partygoers who became known as the “Bright Young Things.” Famously fictionalized by the likes of Evelyn Waugh (in Vile Bodies), Anthony Powell and Henry Green, these men and women cut a dramatic swathe through the epoch and embodied its roaring spirit.
In a series of themed chapters, covering Beaton’s first self-portraits and earliest sitters to his time at Cambridge and as principle society photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, over 50 leading figures who sat for Beaton are profiled and the dazzling parties, pageants and balls of the period are brought to life. Among this glittering cast are Beaton’s socialite sisters Baba and Nancy Beaton, Stephen Tennant, Siegfried Sassoon, Evelyn Waugh and Daphne du Maurier. Beaton’s photographs are complemented by a wide range of letters, drawings, book jackets and ephemera, and contextualised by artworks created by those in his circle, including Christopher Wood, Rex Whistler and Henry Lamb.
Cecil Beaton (1904–80) is one of the most celebrated British portrait photographers of the 20th century and is renowned for his images of elegance, glamour and style. Beaton quickly developed a reputation for his striking and fantastic photographs, which culminated in his portraits of Queen Elizabeth in 1939. Also well known as a diarist, Beaton became a society fixture in his own right. His influence on portrait photography was profound and lives on today in the work of many contemporary photographers.
Featured image, captioned "Paula Gellibrand, Marquesa de Casa Maury against sequined curtains, 1928," is reproduced from 'Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Independent
Eve Watling
Power, privilege and glamour in 1920s London: Inside the glittering world of the Bright Young Things
Daily Mail
Hannah Betts
A century ago, a bohemian set of aristos and artists oozed glamour and wreaked havoc all through the streets of London.
Evening Standard
Melanie McDonagh
Glittering portrait of a gilded generation.
Londonist
Will Noble
Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things Are Tinged With Darkness
Guardian
Sean O'Hagan
As they posed, partied and donned extravagant costumes, Beaton captured the antics of Britain’s young aristocrats between the wars.
Telegraph
Lucie Davies
A magnificently atmospheric display of pure magic
The Times
Rachel Campbell-Johnston
An era’s fun and flamboyance preserved in aspic.
National Review
Brian T. Allen
explores the aesthetic 1920s set and the photographer who chronicled them.
Vogue: UK
Robin Muir
Beaton changed fashion photography forever.
AnOther
Jack Moss
Cecil Beaton and His Bright Young Things Are More Pertinent Than Ever
Telegraph
Hugo Vickers
Decades after Cecil Beaton captured their heyday on camera, his most colourful characters are taking us for a spin again
Blackbook
Ken Scrudato
The ‘Bright Young Things,’ as a flamboyant group of artists, writers and socialites came to be known, are shown here in all their decadence, boundless creativity and utter fashionability.
AnOther Man
Mark Simpson
From Bright Young Thing and documenter of London’s lost generation of the 20s to a documenter of a new generation who would lose their lives in the Second World War, this is just one slice of Cecil Beaton’s remarkable life through photography
Aperture
Lou Stoppard
A web of names spins around every image, every interaction—Virginia Woolf, the actress Anna May Wong, the economist John Maynard Keynes, the author Daphne du Maurier. Everyone seemed to know everyone….We see, through Beaton, his subjects’ relentless search for distraction and, simultaneously, for meaning. We see their quest for a semblance of place, a home, but also, in contradiction, for freedom—for an escape from the humdrum, for that heady, if sometimes startling, sensation of not being trapped.
New Criterion
David Platzer
Returning to Beaton’s enchanted world is a tonic in a fear-ridden age, the catalogue, written by the exhibition’s curator, Robin Muir, a delight.
Paris Review
Emma Garman
Otherworldly, untouchable in his beauty, and eerily, eternally modern.
Vogue
Hamish Bowles
I’m devastated not to be able to experience Britain’s National Portrait Gallery exhibition Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things firsthand, but I am taking consolation in Robin Muir’s handsome catalog (art directed with suitable elegance by Thomas Persson).
Galerie
Lucy Rees
Classic drinks that epitomize the era get a contemporary twist in [this] delightful new book.
Bookforum
Bookforum Editors
A nattily designed volume...
Globe and Mail
Nolan Bryant
A dazzling group of young and unconventional aristocrats dubbed the Bright Young Things swirled at the centre of society in 1920s London. Legendary aesthete Cecil Beaton was both an esteemed member of the group and its unofficial photographer. This volume masterfully brings together his portraits and snapshots of that heady epoch.
Musee
Ariella Cohen
Filled with the theatrical extravagance and beauty that one would expect from Beaton’s photographs.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Before Warhol and his Superstars, there was British photographer Cecil Beaton and the Bright Young Things—a notorious band of irreverent, glamorous and seemingly carefree artists and aristocrats of 1920s and 30s London that gathered around his delirious orbit, awaiting their moment before his lens. The child of a suburban, middle-class family with aspirations for much, much more, Beaton began by photographing his sisters and his mother in flamboyantly theatrical settings, starting in 1914, eventually becoming the primary society photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Though he ran with arch socialites like Edith Sitwell, Anna May Wong, Oliver Messel and Stephen Tennant, his sisters remained consistent muses throughout his life, climbing, with his assistance, to the upper echelons of the social circuit. Pictured here is his sister "Baba," costumed by Beaton as Heloïse for the Pageant of Great Lovers charity ball, in 1927—just a few short years before World War II would end this brief period of privileged, uninhibited play. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 11 in. / 280 pgs / 150 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $49.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $69.95 ISBN: 9781855147720 PUBLISHER: National Portrait Gallery, London AVAILABLE: 5/12/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by National Portrait Gallery, London. Text by Robin Muir.
The stylish and extravagant world of the “Bright Young Things” of 1920s and ’30s London, seen through the eye of renowned British photographer Cecil Beaton
In 1920s and ‘30s Britain, Cecil Beaton used his camera and his larger-than-life personality to mingle with that flamboyant and rebellious group of artists, writers, socialites and partygoers who became known as the “Bright Young Things.” Famously fictionalized by the likes of Evelyn Waugh (in Vile Bodies), Anthony Powell and Henry Green, these men and women cut a dramatic swathe through the epoch and embodied its roaring spirit.
In a series of themed chapters, covering Beaton’s first self-portraits and earliest sitters to his time at Cambridge and as principle society photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, over 50 leading figures who sat for Beaton are profiled and the dazzling parties, pageants and balls of the period are brought to life. Among this glittering cast are Beaton’s socialite sisters Baba and Nancy Beaton, Stephen Tennant, Siegfried Sassoon, Evelyn Waugh and Daphne du Maurier. Beaton’s photographs are complemented by a wide range of letters, drawings, book jackets and ephemera, and contextualised by artworks created by those in his circle, including Christopher Wood, Rex Whistler and Henry Lamb.
Cecil Beaton (1904–80) is one of the most celebrated British portrait photographers of the 20th century and is renowned for his images of elegance, glamour and style. Beaton quickly developed a reputation for his striking and fantastic photographs, which culminated in his portraits of Queen Elizabeth in 1939. Also well known as a diarist, Beaton became a society fixture in his own right. His influence on portrait photography was profound and lives on today in the work of many contemporary photographers.
