Sir Cecil Beaton’s Archive Comes To Life At Hawarden Estate

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Hawarden Estate in Wales is one of Britain’s most storied and creative private estates, and at the helm is Charlie Gladstone — a music-loving festival builder, property and agriculture innovator, author, podcaster, and cultural curator. And now he’s adding artistry to the 13th-century fortification with Iron Age origins with the Cecil Beaton: A Family Archive exhibition.

It’s a personal tribute to the famed photographer, after all, Sir Beaton was Charlie’s great uncle. Think of Cecil Beaton, and think of decadence aplenty, one of the great cultural figures of the 20th century.

Born in in Hampstead, London, in 1904 he became embedded in high society and the glamour ensured. Photographing a whole host of famous faces, his sitters ranged from the Bright Young Things in the 1920s to artists and writers like Jean Cocteau and Andy Warhol, along with Hollywood starlets, cue Greta Garbo (famously his great muse), Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe.

He also went on to become the official photographer to the Royal Family, capturing the late Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation and throughout her reign. He himself was coined “King of Vogue,” more than a photographer, he was a costume designer, writer, stylist, and double Oscar winner for his designs in Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964) — Cecil was indeed a polymath tastemaker of his time.

With all this in mind, an intimate family archive exhibition is rather thrilling. Courtesy of Charlie — Cecil was a regular at Gladstones’ Hawarden Estate — he’s pulled back the gilded rope to share a private collection, with many items on display for the first time, and many revealing the often-overlooked family life of Beaton.

The immersive exhibition features 40 framed photographs, designs for My Fair Lady, family albums, scrapbooks and even hats. Running across two locations on the Hawarden Estate, in Flintshire, North Wales, pieces can be seen at new Gladstone / Hellen Studio, a new luxury British fashion brand inspired by the estate, and at The West End, a holiday apartment in the western wing of Hawarden Castle.

Alongside the exhibitions, the Estate has been hosting new works inspired by Beaton, with illustrator Sam Wood creating pieces for the show and its settings, garden designer Sean Pritchard has filmed a documentary on Beaton’s influence, and muralist Melissa Wickham has painted backdrops that nod to both the Estate and Beaton.

Charlie Gladstone reflects on his great-uncle’s legacy, and shares what to expect at the Hawarden Estate exhibition.

Felicity Carter: When you look at Beaton’s work now, what feels most surprising or new to you?

Charlie Gladstone: Most surprising, or at least unusual, is that he was such an artistic polymath with really clear aesthetic ideas at a very young age; and that he emerged from a home that really didn’t value art and culture in any particular way. We always assume that these talents, or world views, are either nature or nurture, or a bit of both, but in the early days there wasn’t a huge amount of nurture and the nature bit is not at all obvious.

FC: What side of him would you like this exhibition to correct or highlight?

CG: I think people tend to understand him in very particular ways that match their own interests; they relate to his photographs, or queerness or his writing and are often unaware of many of his other talents.

The particular thing that I think I can do is connect his sisters with his rise, and vice versa. Baba, my grandmother and his sister, was a patient muse on hundreds of occasions and that shaped them both in dramatic ways. It is this that’s at the core of our exhibition.

FC: You mentioned he photographed you at Hawarden, do you remember that moment?

CG: I remember many of his visits here and I think I do remember the day he took the photos. Really, we were just family going a walk and one of the family was dressed as if for the opera in a black beret and heavy black overcoat and that was Cecil.

FC: How did growing up with Beaton’s presence shape your own creativity?

CG: I think hugely. I was 16 when he died and I harboured artistic/creative ideas that were already defining me. Having someone to lead the way, even if he didn’t know that he was doing it, was hugely important. I suppose one might say that he gave me permission to be deeply interested in, and committed to, things that perhaps my education/background viewed as no more than hobbies between ‘proper’ jobs.

FC: What are your fond memories of him?

CG: I so well remember the flowers, cakes and generosity of visiting him at his home. He made such a fuss of us and I was incredibly shy but I can see that house clearly now, it is etched into me.

FC: Why did you choose to split the exhibition across the Studio and The West End instead of keeping it in one place?

CG: Really because this was the best space for it to be actively seen by people without us putting on a standard exhibition. Both spaces are ‘working’ spaces so I didn’t want to consume them with Beaton. It was really interesting to imagine what a public exhibition would look like in a working/semi private space. As a result it is a very human, warm and immersive thing. And I wanted two of my businesses to ride on Beaton’s coat tails; Hawarden Estate Holidays and Gladstone/Hellen are therefore the sponsors of the show, in a similar was to any company sponsoring any art show.

FC: What do you think he would he make of the exhibition being shown in these spaces on the estate, rather than in a gallery or museum?

CG: I suspect he would be rather pleased. He was great friends with my parents and so Hawarden was, in some small ways, in his DNA. Hawarden is much better known as the home of my great, great grandfather William Gladstone (four times Prime Minister) and Cecil was nothing if not competitive!

FC: Which of the pieces in the exhibition feels most personal?

CG: The endless photos I discovered of my grandmother and mother blew my mind. My mother had a very difficult final 20 years of her life with depression and dementia and so to see her as a young, very beautiful and glamorous person did something profound and important to me; it showed me a side of her that I hadn’t considered for many years.

FC: What are the must-sees?

CG: The beautiful album that Cecil gave to my grandfather on his wedding day. On the cover it says To Alec of Baba by Cecil. It was full of photos of my grandmother and is, in very significant ways, a snapshot of a happier time. Ten years later my grandfather had been killed in Tripoli in the War, and I think my grandmother’s life was somewhat destroyed.

FC: What was it like sifting through the boxes and envelopes you inherited, any fun discoveries?

CG: I kept thinking, ‘I’ve found enough for now, but one last look’ and then finding something so amazing that I just carried on. It’s a bit like a fisherman’s last cast catching something which in turn spurs him to cast again and again…

FC: Do you see this as the beginning of more projects with his archive?

CG: I think we have more to do, but that will reveal itself when we’re ready. I have done a lot for posterity with this; his stuff is now largely in order for future generations. But Cecil is a gift that keeps on giving.

FC: Beaton was such a 20th-century figure, why do you think his work and life still feel relevant today?

CG: Two things. Seriously. Live life to the full and be daring, be yourself.

Address: Hawarden Estate, Flintshire, Wales, CH5 3FB.


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