Portraits by Cecil Beaton at Pera Museum

The Suna and ?nan K?raç Foundation and the Pera Museum, in the context of its 10th anniversary celebration program, is presenting the works of Oscar-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) until July 26. 

Prepared in collaboration with Sotheby's and curated by Terence Pepper, the senior advisor on photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the exhibition titled "Cecil Beaton: Portraits" includes portraits of artists, actors, writers, intellectuals and royalty from the 1920s to the 1970s, from the collection of Sotheby's Cecil Beaton Studio Archive.

Beaton worked in a variety of media ranging from painting to illustration, caricature, theatre and film costume design (winning two Oscars in the latter category for "Gigi" and "My Fair Lady") as well as being a best-selling author, photographic historian, diarist and occasional actor. However, it is as a photographer that most critics agree he made his most important contribution to the arts.

Beaton's photographs define a glittering generation, as from behind his camera lens he captured the great and famous personalities of the 1920s to the 1970s - from eminent artists, to iconic actors, influential philosophers and international royalty. These intimate portraits tell the story behind the public veneer of the subject, illuminating their private lives and relationships with Beaton himself.

Pepper explained how Beaton's selected works were brought together: "...When approached by Özalp Birol, general manager of the Suna and ?nan K?raç Foundation Culture and Arts Enterprises, and the whole team of the Pera Museum and Joanna Ling, curator at the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's, with an agreed brief that we would create a new exhibition that contained many of...