For Beaton fans.

An exact contemporary of Cecil Beaton, the great Welsh photographer Angus McBean chose to specialize in the theater whereas Beaton chose the more lucrative world of fashion and film. Yet a viewing of the less famous McBean’s work shows a level of sophistication and skill Beaton could never equal, whether it’s in the complex sets, creative posing or theatrical lighting.

On the cover – Dorothy Dickson, 1938

This splendid book of McBean’s work shows not only his studio work but also includes an extensive collection of his self portraits which became his Christmas cards. It’s said that his picture of Vivien Leigh was the calling card that got her the role of Scarlett O’Hara and I can believe it. Adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind is still the top selling movie ever.

McBean died in 1990 and you can find a fine review of his life and work in the London Times here.

The book is splendidly illustrated; you can get a sense of the man from this Jake Wallis portrait of McBean in his very severe looking library, complete with some 40,000 glass plates of his life’s work:

Another Parkinson for the library.

If I make mention of Norman Parkinson yet again it’s for the simple reason that a friend gave me her copy of Parkinson’s first book, Sisters under the Skin, for Christmas.

The sensationalist cover notwithstanding, the contents show Parkinson at his very best. Simply stated, Norman Parkinson is the Renoir of the camera and, mercifully, there is no recourse to black and white for its own sake. I increasingly think of black and white as an excuse sought out by photographers who are struggling with mediocre color material. When Parkinson uses monochrome it’s because it’s the right thing to do.

You see women in all their glory and infinite variety here. Iman with an impossibly long neck, a slutty/sultry Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor – never more beautiful, an equally lovely Lesley-Anne Down rendered in pastel tones, and a simply charming portrait of the Queen Mother, warm and tender. There’s Twiggy at the height of her fame, Princess Anne very much in charge of her (charging) steed, and that fabulous Van Dongen out-of-focus book cover you will see if you click the link above, from Parkinson’s book ‘Portraits in Fashion’.

This book is enhanced with short stories for most of the pictures, my favorite being the Marisa Berenson one where some crass git remarks “Goodness, your backside is collapsing like Mahtma Gandhi’s dhoti” to which the superb Marisa replies “Who’s she?”.

Wenda Rogerson (Mrs. Norman Parkinson) makes a spectacular appearance in perhaps the warmest photograph in a book suffused with warmth – you can also see her by clicking the link at the start of this piece and, yes, she hangs on my wall to this day. My, even Barbara Cartland looks half human in Parkinson’s hands, layers of make up or not. The only question which constantly comes to mind is how could an Englishman be, well, so Italian?

Very worthwhile searching out on the used market as it’s no longer available new.

A driven man.

Angel Rizzuto lead a troubled life. Despite substantial wealth he spent the last years of his life in a seedy single room apartment in New York, whence, from 1952 through 1966, he emerged daily to record the city and its people. Returning, he would put up the window blind, get out his chemicals and process his pictures. Twelve pictures a day for fifteen years …. he had found his calling.

His legacy consisted of nearly 1,700 contact sheets, some 60,000 images in all, which he left to the Library of Congress along with $50,000. Michael Lesy has done an outstanding job reprising the life of this troubled man and his strange quest for immortality.

It’s hard to know how you decide which one hundred or so pictures to present from a lifetime’s output so huge, but the ones beautifully reproduced here are seldom happy. Troubled people on the street, mostly women, and recurring self portraits of the unsmiling photographer. There are occasional bursts of lyricism like the small girl with her poodle (p. 83) or the painter in Central Park (p. 63) but by and large this collection will make you frown rather than smile.

Imagine living and processing all your pictures in this:

Angel Rizzuto’s home and darkroom.

Simultaneously troubling and inspiring, a great tale of one photographer’s odyssey, this book is highly recommended. A related New York Times article appears here.