Angus McBean

McBean's masks became a talking point in social columns, and were much admired by the leading London West End photographer Hugh Cecil. Cecil offered him an assistant's post at his New Grafton Street studio[8] where McBean learnt how to retouch large glass negatives and other useful techniques,[9] whilst working on his own photographs in the evenings. Having learnt the secrets of Cecil's softer style, McBean set up his own studio 18 months later in a basement in Belgrave Road, Victoria, London.

Angus McBean – Portrait

The artist McBean, as he was still known as a mask maker, gained a commission in 1936 from Ivor Novello for masks for his play "The Happy Hypocrite". Novello was so impressed with McBean's romantic photographs that he commissioned him to take a set of production photographs as well, including young actress Vivien Leigh. The results, taken on stage with McBean's idiosyncratic lighting, instantly replaced the set already made by the long-established but stolid Stage Photo Company. McBean had a new career and a photographic leading lady: he was to photograph Vivien Leigh on stage and in the studio for almost every performance she gave until her death thirty years later.

McBean resultantly became one of the most significant portrait photographers of the 20th century, and was known as a photographer of celebrities. In the spring of 1942 his career was temporarily ruined when he was arrested in Bath for criminal acts of homosexuality. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was released in the autumn of 1944. After the Second World War, McBean was able to successfully resume his career.[10]

There were in effect two periods to McBean's career, his pre- and post-war phases. Pre-war he was a lot more confident in himself and experimented successfully with surrealism, indeed his work with the likes of Vivien Leigh are some of the most accessible surrealist photographic images known. Post war he reverted to a more regular style of portraiture photography, nearly always working with the entertainment and theatre profession.[10]

In 1945, not sure whether he would find work again, McBean set up a new studio in a bomb-damaged building in Endell Street, Covent Garden.[11] He sold his Soho camera for £35, and bought a new half-plate Kodak View monorail camera to which he attached his trusted Zeiss lenses. McBean was commissioned first by the Stratford Memorial Theatre to photograph a production of Anthony and Cleopatra, and all his former clients quickly returned. Through the late 1940s and 50s he was the official photographer at Stratford, the Royal Opera House, Sadler's Wells, Glyndebourne, the Old Vic and at all the productions of H. M. Tennent, servicing the theatrical, musical and ballet star system. (An example of his work in this genre from 1951 can be seen on the page about Anne Sharp, whom he photographed in a role in one of Benjamin Britten's operas.) Magazines such as The Sketch and Tatler and Bystander vied to commission McBean's new series of surreal portraits. In 1952 he photographed Pamela Green as Botticelli's Venus, with David Ball his boyfriend as Zephyrus.[12]

Despite the decline in demand for theatre and production art during the 1950s, McBean's creative and striking ideas provided him with work in the emergent record cover business with companies such as EMI, when he was commissioned to create Cliff Richard's first four album sleeves. McBean's later works included being the photographer for the cover of The Beatles' first album Please Please Me, as well as commissions by a number of other performers.[13] In 1969 he returned with the Beatles to the same location to shoot the cover for their album Get Back. This later came out as Let It Be with a different cover, but McBean's photo was used (together with an outtake from the Please Please Me cover shoot) for the cover of the Beatles' 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 compilations in 1973.[14] In his later years he became more selective of the work he undertook, and continued to explore surrealism whilst taking portrait photographs of individuals such as Agatha Christie, Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward. Both periods of his work (pre and post war) are now eagerly sought by collectors and his work sits in many major collections around the world.[15]

Evidence of his innovative photographic techniques and surrealist themes can be found in the many Christmas cards he created. For these images he constructed elaborate sets along with detailed props and miniatures, often taking weeks to produce the desired effect.[9]

Two figures have overshadowed McBean’s reputation: Cecil Beaton (thanks to his lavish lifestyle and work for Vogue and the British Royal Family); and David Bailey, who much later (1960s) was close to Cecil Beaton both personally and in terms of style. McBean did not enjoy this level of fame either in his life or after death, even though he was arguably the better technically and artistically. Additionally McBean's focus on the world of theatre (particularly London's West End) did not give him international recognition. In 2007, seven original colour transparencies (slides) of his photographs for the Beatles album cover Please Please Me were accidentally thrown in the bin at the headquarters of EMI.