SIR CECIL BEATON (1904-1980)

In 1953, with fewer professional demands on his time following the Coronation in June, Cecil Beaton enrolled for two terms at the Slade School of Art as a mature student. Painting and portraiture had been a part of his professional life since his first days with Vogue in the 1920s, and in 1953 he soon began painting portraits of friends and local children in his makeshift studio in the gardener’s potting shed at Reddish House. Around a dozen of these sensitively painted portraits are known, and many, like the present work, were gifted to the sitters. The Bundy family, who lived in the farm opposite Reddish, were a major part of Beaton’s local life from the beginning of his time in the village of Broad Chalke in 1947 and feature often in Beaton’s diary. They were also favourites of Greta Garbo when she stayed at Broad Chalke for six weeks in 1951, and she would walk across to the farm every morning to scratch the backs of the Bundy’s pigs. Michael occasionally appeared in some of Beaton’s fashion shoots for Vogue in the garden at Reddish or at the farm.

We are very grateful to Andrew Ginger for his assistance in cataloguing this work, and lot 85.