Not just your average queer.

I cannot remember a time when I was not aware of the multi-talented Englishman, Cecil Beaton (1904-1980). Photographer, writer, designer, he did all of these at the highest level.

Whether it was 1964 when My Fair Lady hit the big screen (Beaton designed all the gowns) or 1971 when his landmark show An Anthology of Fashion premiered at the Victoria and Albert museum in Kensington, or 1962 when at the tender age of ten, I first read his book, Photobiography, Beaton has always held a special place in my growth as a photographer.

Central to his development was a surpassing interest in fashion, and it has to be said that the classic Vionnet, Schiaparelli and Gres costumes on display at the V&A show were breathtakingly well exhibited. The Gres and a couple of magnificent Balenciagas stick in my mind even today. How did women fit in these? Beaton, of course, had all the right connections to secure loans of these high flights of couture from their rich and famous owners. Sharing an alma mater with Churchill (Harrow School) and a Cambridge graduate, Beaton occupied the rarefied, dandified world of fashion and aesthetes from day one. Even as a boy, he experimented, using his sisters and relatives as models, with exotic lighting and backgrounds, the latter of his own creation as often as not.

And before you dismiss him as just another pansy in a cultural subset seemingly dominated by them, take a look at his pictures of war torn London and you will see the work of a great, tough photographer, unafraid to risk life and limb. How can one look at his pictures of the ruins of St. Paul’s even today, and not feel hatred towards the German Master Race?

None of this is to deny that Beaton came in for his fair share of ridicule during a long life. His epicene manner did not help. In 1971 David Bailey made a vicious television documentary named Beaton by Bailey, where Beaton comes over as nothing so much as a tired old fag, none of this helped by Bailey’s reference to him as Cecily in a newspaper interview of the time. Not for nothing was this hatchet job dubbed ‘Beaton by Bailey’ soon after its showing.

Then there was the ridiculous ‘love affair’ with Greta Garbo. A homosexual and a lesbian. Straight out of the Tchaikovsky playbook and just about as successful. Add accusations of being a relentless self publicist and publicity hound – how else does one get known for heaven’s sake? – and you might view the man with faint ridicule. Yet just one look at the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady or any one of hundreds of his great photographs of royalty and fashion (no confusing those two!) and you see the work of a great and original artist.

Hunt down some of his work. It’s worth it.