Lady Diana Cooper

1922–1974

Diaries, 1922–1974

Six volumes of his diaries, spanning the years 1922–1974, are published in his lifetime. According to Hugo Vickers, who edited a fuller edition, opinions in the published volumes are softened, whereas in the originals Beaton can be truly venomous.

April 1924

First photograph in British Vogue

A portrait of the academic George “Dadie” Rylands as Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, taken at Cambridge, appears in British Vogue; it earns a modest fee and marks the start of his professional life in photography. As a boy he had learned the basics of shooting and developing film from his nanny, who owned a Kodak 3A, and he would send his pictures to society magazines under a pen name, “recommending” the work of Beaton.

1927

First exhibition at the Cooling Gallery

Under the patronage of Osbert Sitwell, his first exhibition is held at the Cooling Gallery in London.

1927

Becomes a regular contributor to Vogue

He begins contributing regularly to Vogue under Condé Nast and quickly becomes a prolific and respected contributor, photographing high society, debutantes and aristocratic circles. He holds a contract with Condé Nast Publications to photograph exclusively for them, at several thousand pounds a year for several years to come.

1928

Moves to New York

Believing he will find greater success in the United States, he moves to New York and gradually establishes his reputation there, thereafter spending part of each year in the city, in hotel suites he redecorates in his “Japanese art nouveau” style in exchange for reduced rent. He photographs society figures such as Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt and the future Duchess of Windsor and, in disguise, impersonates the notorious Lady Mendl at a fancy-dress ball.

1930

Meets Peter Watson in Vienna

The British art collector Peter Watson at first seems unremarkable to him but soon captivates him; in Venice, where they stay with friends including Oliver Messel, Beaton nurses Watson through an illness. Watson and Messel soon become romantically involved, and Beaton enters four years of intense obsession from which, in the words of his biographer Hugo Vickers, he never wholly freed himself; he and Watson never became lovers.