Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party, the exhibition, isn’t, alas, just about that fabulous fete champetre he held at his country home in Wiltshire in 1937 for his gilded young friends. That was one of those parties that seemed to define the age, what with everyone dressed like something out of Watteau , and our host in a Surrealist frock coat decorated with roses and eggshells, surmounted by a disconcerting rabbit mask. The studio was hung with swags of roses and the phaeton filled with bundles of meadowsweet; bird cages hung from the trees. They don’t do parties like that any more.
This show is, rather, about Beaton’s relations with gardens and with flowers: as props, as aspects of his adored houses, as dress design, as theatrical decoration, as interior decoration and simply as necessities of life. He calls to mind Nancy Mitford’s response to the question of how she would spend an income of £500 a year: “£480 on cut flowers”, she declared, as her opening bid.
Cecil himself grew lots of flowers at Ashcombe, his beloved first house, and Reddish house, his second, but he was not one to be limited by the season, and before going down to the country, he would descend on Covent Garden market before opening time and carry off enormous boxes of exotic blooms. There are some lovely pictures here – all black and white – of Beaton’s interiors, with endless vases of flowers and a delicious self-portrait photograph of him in 1930 sitting winsomely at his desk, a white peacock to the side, and an enormous length of white roses draped from desk to floor.
This little show is his life told through flowers. There’s a fabulous photo of Rex Whistler at the outset, reclining with a mandolin and knee breeches, which sets the tone. Then there’s his early life, taking pictures of his mother and sisters in the gardens; an account of his years at Ashcombe; his royal photography - and clever Cecil managed simultaneously to keep Wallis Simpson and Queen Elizabeth onside in 1937, making the latter look less dumpy than ethereal in the garden with a parasol. There are his opera and ballet sets, including a model for the stage for Turandot (we are reminded that his war work including a stint in the Far East which he put to use artistically) and there are some of his costume designs for My Fair Lady – plus the Oscar statuette he got for his costume work on the film. There are some charming letters to him from his gardener, letting him know how the prized delphiniums were getting on.
It's all charming, but I bet the man himself would have replaced the fake decorative blooms with enormous quantities of real ones, and would have given short shrift to tinfoil as a backdrop for his photographs (he did use it for effect in taking photos, mind you). But really, this is simply a chance to wallow in Beaton’s charm and gaiety and photography, loosely linked to flowers. Oh and there’s a quote from Roy Strong here recalling the great man’s observation that “white flowers are the only really chic ones”. Right…it’s out with my hideously common pink peonies, and off to the shops for some fabulously flamboyant white ones. Time to channel Cecil.
The Garden Museum, to Sep 21; gardenmuseum.org.uk
