Self-Portrait With Friends: The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1922-1974

Cecil Beaton has long been regarded as one of the great modern photographers. His career as a set and fashion designer has been no less illustrious. This book establishes him as a contemporary diarist without peer. As his editor, Richard Buckle, writes in his Introduction, 'Among recorders of current events.... Beaton stands alone. ...(no other) has met, and photographed, such a diversity of men and women.' Beaton also wrote about them in his diaries, which over 50 years filled more than 150 manuscript volumes. 'Self-Portrait with Friends' represents the best and most significant entries from Beaton's diaries.'

Beaton moves with graceful ease among the greatest artists and social lions of his time. He was obviously a welcome guest and his 'Diaries' describe his encounters with a fabulous variety of personalities. He gives vivid impressions of the world famous such as Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, the British royal family, painters such as Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, the British royal family, painters such as Picasso and Francis Bacon, writers like Edith Sitwell, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and Evelyn Waugh. His work involved him often with performers and there are superb vignettes of such as Noel Coward, Lawrence Olivier, the Lunts, Mick Jagger, and the making of "My Fair Lady."

But the "Diaries' are much more than an anthology of the great and near-great. They movingly describe the life and a rare gift for friendship. Most touching and fascinating of all Beaton's relationship was his long and tantalizing courtship of Greta Garbo.

Illustrated with 24 black and white plates representing the finest of Beaton's photography.