Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton CBEwas an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1970...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth14 January 1904
Cecil Beaton quotes about
expression aesthetic shows
A technical failure that shows some attempt at aesthetic expression is of infinitely more value than uninspired success.
mean reality airline-business
Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means... airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash.
sky islands rose
More varied than any landscape was the landscape in the sky, with islands of gold and silver, peninsulas of apricot and rose against a background of many shades of turquoise and azure.
principles gum london
On close inspection, this device turned out to be a funereal juke box - the result of mixing Lloyd's of London with the principle of the chewing gum dispenser.
missing mind bouquets
Miss Marilyn Monroe calls to mind the bouquet of a fireworks display, eliciting from her awed spectators an open-mouthed chorus of ohs and ahs ...
fashion style littles
Never in the history of fashion has so little material been raised so high to reveal so much that needs to be covered so badly.
blue circles criticism
I have the worst ear for criticism, even when I have created a stage set I like, I always hear the woman in the back of the dress circle, who says she doesn't like blue.
san-francisco cities bay-area
San Francisco is perhaps the most European of all American cities
intelligent conceit enthusiastic
Intelligent and alert, wistful but enthusiastic, frank yet tactful, assured without conceit and tender without sentimentality.
rose asparagus giants
After twenty annual visits, I am still surprised each time I return to see this giant asparagus bed of alabaster and rose and green skyscrapers.
teeth want photograph
I want to make photographs of very elegant women taking the lipstick off their teeth.
animal gazing cameras
[He stared into the camera] like some sort of an animal gazing from across the back of its sty. (On Winston Churchill)
water soap soap-and-water
What is elegance? Soap and water!
fashion style fashionable
The truly fashionable are beyond fashion.