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Cecil Beaton at Home: An Interior Life

Cecil Beaton (1904 1980) was one of twentieth- century Britain s Renaissance men: photographer, costume designer, set designer, playwright, creator of fashion fabrics, and writer on raffine interiors and the personalities who inhabited them. He also happened to be a fine interior decorator. Cecil Beaton at Home focuses on two homes dear to Beaton s heart Ashcombe House, near the Wiltshire village of Tollard Royal, and Reddish House, located in Broad Chalke, another village in the same county as well as London`s Pelham Place and Beaton s New York hotel suites. Simultaneously a retreat, an inspiration, a photographer s studio, and a stage for impressive entertaining, Beaton s country homes also fuelled his passion for art, gardening, and delight in village life. Against his often-extravagant interiors, Beaton s private life unfolds his unique talent for self-promotion, desire for theatricality, and uncertain pursuit of love. This lavishly illustrated visual biography brings together original photographs, artworks, and possessions from his interiors to present an intimate picture of Beaton s extraordinary life.