Photograph Portrait of T.S. Eliot and Wife Valerie Esme Fletcher by Angus McBean
Photograph Portrait of T.S. Eliot and Wife Valerie Esme Fletcher by Angus McBean
A silver gelatin portrait photograph of T. S Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot 1888-1965) together with his second wife Esme Valerie Fletcher Eliot (1926- 2012), by noted surrealist photographer Angus McBean, London. Signed lower right corner. Provenance: Descended in the Eliot family to Charlotte Stearns Smith (b 1911).
Height: 14 3/4” Width: 10 1/2” Depth: 1/2”
T.S. Eliot was an important poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry. The photographer, Angus Bean (1904-1990), began his career in the theatre as mask-maker and scenery designer before turning to full-time theatre photography. McBean is renowned for his theatrical and inventive photography of the 1930s and 1940s. Imitated throughout his career, his influence especially in advertising is still prominent today. In 1935 he opened his own studio; and his prominent style was soon being published in glossy magazines. The Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 was an influence on McBean's theatrical portraits. After the Second World War he opened a larger studio in Covent Garden, and in the 1940s and 1950s was inundated with commissions from theatre companies. In the 1960s McBean photographed the Beatles for their first album. (Source: National Portrait Gallery, London).