Author:
Cecil Beaton
Report:
Newsletter 23
Year:
2024
Subject Matter:
British in Portugal
Excerpt:
Cecil Beaton was already a well-known fashion photographer when he was sent to North Africa by the UK Ministry of Information to serve as a “war artist”. While there, he received instructions to go to Lisbon to photograph the Council of Ministers and local celebrities, presumably in an attempt to flatter the Portuguese authorities at a time when Britain was competing with Germany to obtain Portuguese wolfram (tungsten) and was also hoping to gain access to Portuguese bases in the Azores. His photographs were subsequently published in Portugal in Panorama.
In 2009, the British Historical Society of Portugal, in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the British Council, organised an exhibition of Beaton’s photographs. The catalogue contained 35 photographs, together with the sections from his diaries that covered his time in Portugal, which are reproduced here.
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