Circle of Friends:The World of Rex Whistler, Stephen Tennant & Cecil Beaton by Robin Muir

7:30pm

Talk by Robin Muir, a renowned photographic historian, curator, and Contributing Editor to British Vogue.

From very different backgrounds Rex Whistler and Stephen Tennant met as students at the Slade and having found common ground in whimsical drawings, as well as sharing a similar sense of humour, they became friends and collaborators. A young if luckless photographer, Cecil Beaton first met Stephen at a party in 1926, on the coldest day of the year. He had admired him at a distance for so long and, as if a light clicked on, suddenly everything Cecil ever wanted — chiefly fame and glamour — was now within his grasp. And it was through Stephen that Rex and Cecil met, both his guests in the South of France. The three formed a close friendship which ended only with Rex’s death. Rather despite himself Rex became something of a ‘Bright Young Thing’; rather despite himself Stephen a writer manqué, and entirely to plan, Cecil became the most celebrated photographer of his age.