Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) was a British designer, writer, cartoonist, diarist and socialite who loved theatre in all its forms. Chiefly remembered as the leading British portrait and fashion photographer of his day, less well known is the fact that Beaton was one of Britain's hardest working war photographers during the Second World War. As an official photographer for the British Ministry of Information, he travelled extensively to document the impact of war on people and places in his own unique style. In later life, Beaton came to regard his war photographs as his single most important body of photographic work. He took some 7,000 photographs for the Ministry of Information covering all aspects of the Second World War. Here, IWM brings together 50 of these incredible images, covering an array of subjects and theatres and giving readers a small sample of this remarkable collection.