A DOUBLE PORTRAIT OF CECIL BEATON
FEATURES||118
#page 118#
Edgar Degas once chafed James McNeill Whistler, who wore a cape and sported a monocle, by saying, “My dear friend, you
dress as if you had no talent? Cecil Beaton adopted a similar pose during a career that enabled him to photograph Lillie
Langtry in the beginning and Mick Jagger at the end. Unquestionably an artist of special refinement, he posed almost
fatally as one who was ”artistic? The pose has kept his name alive as a character who played various hothouse scenes in
Mayfair, Hollywood, and among the Manhattan and Palm Springs hoi polloi of the Depression '30s. The summer's immense