If there is such a thing as Masters of Photography, he undoubtedly ranks amongst them, even peaking as Master of the Masters perhaps: Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), that elegant phenomenon, friend of Kings, confidante of Audrey Hepburn, chronicler of Dali and witness of his day. Seldom a photographer had more influence on the style of a whole epoch - think of his rendering and stage settings of „My fair Lady“, whose elegant racing scene was devised with his trusted Couturier Hubert de Givenchy. He developed a costly and intricate method of reproducing transposed backdrops of Watteaus and other classical Old Masters, to achieve, be it in the touching portrays of the young Queen Elisabeth, sometimes in the regalia of the Order of the Garter, in his last royal sitting, with a simple black coat of a british Admiral of the fleet: „Sometimes photographs are more like people than they are themselves“ Beaton writes in his Dairy in 1946.
A trusted companion of the Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor after his abdication, who trusted Beaton (and his flattering retouchings), he was slightly surprised to be commissioned by the Palace, not on good talking terms with the Duke and the woman for which he left the Throne, taking, by the way, all the money from his funds as Prince of Wales, but that is another story. His pictures evoked the pageant and mystery of British Monarchy that prevails to the day. When this image had to change, making the Royals more approachable for the public eye, he did this most difficult task of every photographer - he changed his style, with again brillant results.
Cecil Beaton was perhaps the last real lover of beauty. Of one he was extremely fond, the fashionable Duchess of Kent: „Those who had the good fortune to meet her could see the cool classical features, in a perfect oval head high on a straight column of neck, the topaz eyes, the slightly tilted smile, the apricot complexion, and the nut-brown cap of flat silken curls“ - he was the poet behind the camera.
We find the sensitive portray of the Right Hon. Stephen Tennant in 1927, standing in front of an aluminum wallpaper, Marlene Dietrich in New York in 1935, in her profile, in her hands a cigarette holder, and of course self-portrays, that show a extremely refined gentleman of the old school with a natural good posture and eyes bristling with intelligence.
Who left 100,000 negatives and 9,000 vintage prints in the care of Sotheby´s, a smart move again.
“I desire to photograph my models flooded with an aura of light, their faces glowing with reflections” Beaton writes in his ‘Photobiography’. How the reception of his art will go down in Dubai, of all places remains to be seen. Rest assured: Beauty prevails, even in the Arabics. Hopefully, that is.

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