Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An illuminating portrait of this imaginative, charming, and talented man, and his contribution to the world of photography.

Cecil Beaton was a man of dazzling charm and style, and his talents were many. At the age of twenty he sent Vogue an out-of focus snap of a college play, and for the next half-century and more he kept readers of the magazine up to date on all the various activities of his career.

Condé Nast, the owner of Vogue , convinced Beaton to abandon his pocket Kodak, and his resulting photographic work earned him a place among the great chroniclers of fashion. Witty and inventive, he also designed settings for plays and films--and for himself--and as a writer he was an eloquent champion of stylish living. This book includes articles, drawings, and photographs by Beaton dating from the 1920s to the 1970s. Beaton loved Vogue , and his contributions testify to the wit, imagination, and professionalism that he and the magazine always had in common.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Sir Cecil Beaton began his photographic career as a boy with a Brownie camera and debuted in Vogue with what Beaton himself called "a slightly out-of-focus snapshot" in 1924. For 50 years he contributed photographs, drawings, and written dispatches to the British, American, and French editions of the magazine. Ross's (Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners) brief biographical introduction is light on analysis or critique, and she lets Beaton's own words and pictures dominate the book. His illustrated essays for American Vogue are accessible via ProQuest's Vogue Archive as originally published, but scholars will likely find that the context this title provides is preferable. Images spanning his career trace subjects from the Windsors to Picasso to Twiggy, with reprints from Beaton's amiable chats about style and society. In "Beaton- at War," this unlikely but observant correspondent trains his eye on Royal Air Force bases and bombed cities. The book concludes with an index of portrait subjects and a list of original sources. VERDICT A love letter to Beaton summarizing his years at Vogue, overflowing with illustrations. For fashion fans.-Lindsay M. King, Yale Univ. Lib., New Haven, CT (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.