The King of Vogue: National Portrait Gallery To Host Landmark Cecil Beaton Photography Exhibition

The National Portrait Gallery is preparing to unveil a spectacular tribute to one of Britain’s most influential creative forces with Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World, running from 9 October 2025 through 11 January 2026. This groundbreaking exhibition marks the first major show dedicated exclusively to exploring Cecil Beaton’s revolutionary contributions to fashion photography—the foundation upon which his legendary career was built.

Known as “The King of Vogue,” Cecil Beaton was far more than just a photographer. He was a fashion illustrator, Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist, and perceptive writer who became an extraordinary force in both British and American creative circles throughout the twentieth century. His signature artistic style—a captivating marriage of Edwardian stage glamour and modern elegance—didn’t just capture fashion; it revolutionised it entirely.

A Gallery of Icons

The exhibition promises to dazzle visitors with portraits of some of the twentieth century’s most iconic figures. Hollywood legends including Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando will grace the gallery walls alongside British royalty Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. The artistic world is represented through Beaton’s striking portraits of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Salvador Dalí.

With around 250 items on display—including photographs, personal letters, original sketches, and costumes—the exhibition showcases Beaton at the absolute pinnacle of his creative powers. Curated by photographic historian and Vogue Contributing Editor Robin Muir, the show offers an unprecedented deep dive into work that has often been highlighted but rarely examined in such comprehensive detail.

From Cambridge to Global Fame

The exhibition traces Beaton’s remarkable journey from his earliest experiments with a camera around 1910, photographing his two sisters and mother, through his inventive years as a Cambridge University student, to his first breakthrough images of high society patrons like Stephen Tennant and the Sitwell siblings who launched his career.

Visitors will journey through the vibrant London of the 1920s and 1930s—the era of the “Bright Young Things”—when Beaton secured his first commissions from Vogue. The narrative continues through his travels to New York and Paris during the Jazz Age, where he was drawn to Hollywood’s golden era glamour and photographed the legends of the silver screen.

Royal Photographer and War Correspondent

Beaton’s first royal photographs appeared in the late 1930s, and as the Second World War loomed, he helped define the notion of monarchy for the modern age. His appointment as an official war photographer by the Ministry of Information took him around the globe, capturing not just the conflict but the human stories within it.

The war’s end ushered in a new era of elegance, and Beaton was perfectly positioned to capture the high fashion brilliance of the 1950s in vivid, glorious colour. The exhibition culminates with what many consider his greatest triumph: the costumes and sets he created for the musical My Fair Lady, both on stage and later for the film adaptation.

A Self-Taught Visionary

What makes Beaton’s achievements even more remarkable is that he was almost entirely self-taught. He developed a singular photographic style that seamlessly blended Edwardian stage portraiture with emerging European surrealism and the modernist approach of great American photographers, all filtered through his distinctly English sensibility.

“Cecil Beaton needs little introduction as a photographer, fashion illustrator, triple Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist, elegant writer of essays and occasionally waspish diaries, stylist, decorator, dandy and party goer,” notes curator Robin Muir. “Unquestionably one of the leading visionary forces of the British twentieth century, he also made a lasting contribution to the artistic lives of New York, Paris and Hollywood.”

A Historic Return

This exhibition holds special significance for the National Portrait Gallery, which has a distinguished history with Beaton’s work. His photographs were the subject of the NPG’s very first dedicated photography exhibition in 1968, created in collaboration with Beaton himself. It was also the first solo survey accorded to any living photographer in any national museum in Britain—a testament to his groundbreaking influence.

“We are honoured to be working with Vogue’s Robin Muir, whose exhaustive research, vision and flair will guide us through Beaton’s innovative and storied influences on the fashion world,” says Victoria Siddall, Director of the National Portrait Gallery.

For anyone interested in fashion, photography, royal history, or twentieth-century British culture, Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World promises to be an unmissable celebration of a man who elevated fashion and portrait photography to true art form. His era-defining photographs didn’t just capture beauty, glamour, and star power—they helped create the visual language of modern celebrity and style that continues to influence us today.

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World runs at the National Portrait Gallery from 9 October 2025 to 11 January 2026. The exhibition is generously supported by The Bern Schwartz Foundation.