Identity area
Reference code
Beaton/F/18
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 30 November 1956 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
1p paper
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Photographer, artist, writer, and designer of scenery and costumes. Educated at Harrow and St John's College, Cambridge, 1922-5. Made his name as a photographer through portraits of the Sitwells. Employed by Vogue in London and New York. Published 'The Book of Beauty' (1930). Photographed the Duke of Windsor's wedding, 1937. War photographer, 1939-45. Designed 'Lady Windermere's Fan', 1945. Designed costumes for 'An Ideal Husband' and 'Anna Karenina', 1948. Worked on 'The School for Scandal', 1949, 'Quadrille' for Noel Coward, 1952, 'Turandot', 1961, and 'La Traviata', 1966. Designed costumes for 'My Fair Lady', 1956, and for the film version in Hollywood, 1963. His play 'The Gainsborough Girls', 1951 and 1959, was unsuccessful. Published 'The Glass of Fashion' (1954), and six volumes of diaries. Exhibited photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, 1968. Knighted 1972.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Typescript letter to the American writer, philanthropist and co-founder of the New York City Ballet, Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996), in which Beaton writes that he has enclosed a paragraph about George for the memorial show. Is thrilled by the possibility of designing set and costumes for Samuel Barber's new opera, 'Vanessa'. Adds that the news about the New York City Ballet dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq is very distressing and that he hopes for a better outcome than can be expected at present. Le Clercq contracted polio in Copenhagen while performing on the company's 1956 European tour and was subsequently paralyzed from the waist down.