ANGUS MCBEAN: One of Britain’s Most Prolific and Important Photographers of the 20th Century

“Right from an early age I always had a passion to make the camera do things it was not designed for.”

TRQ: Angus McBean Born June 8, 1904

Photographer and set designer Angus McBean is considered one of Britain’s most prolific and important photographers of the 20^th century. McBean shot the cover for The Beatles’ Please Please Me (1963) album, but the archive of his decades of chronicling the British stage is nearly unmatched. Vivien Leigh, Agatha Christie, Laurence Olivier, and Shirley Bassey are among the actors and performers he photographed. In his surrealistic style, McBean photographed Audrey Hepburn, who was then unknown, and transformed her career. McBean is now a cult figure whose work is highly collectible and found in collections around the world. 

McBean was born in Newbridge, Monmouthshire, Wales on June 8, 1904. His father worked in mining, and his job required the family to move around often. McBean loved film and cinema, even as a child.

He attended Monmouth School and bought his first camera at age 15. At this time, he also made sets, costumes, and props for Lyceum Theatre. McBean as described this time as when his interest in costume and performance began. Later, he studied at Newport Technical College.

In 1924, McBean moved to London where he worked at Liberty department store for seven years. He continued practicing photography while also working as a theatrical model and mask-maker. In 1925 he married Helena Wood. The marriage was brief.

He left Liberty in 1932 and grew his signature beard as a commitment to his new creative career. Society photographer Hugh Cecil visited McBean’s early exhibit at the Private’s Den tea shop on Maddox Street in London and helped him make connections within London’s theatre world.

McBean’s breakthrough came when he made masks for Ivor Novello’s adaptation of The Happy Hypocrite by Max Beerbohm in 1936. Novello commissioned McBean to photograph the production, and a young Vivien Leigh was a cast member. So impressive was his work that McBean photographed nearly all of Leigh’s stage and studio performances until her death in 1967.

With his flamboyant, surreal style, McBean became the official photographer for several British theatres, including the Royal Opera House and the Old Vic. This changed in September 1939, when London’s West End temporarily closed after the start of the Second World War. During the Blitz, bombs damaged many of McBean’s glass negatives and photographic plates.

In 1942, McBean was arrested in Bath for gay acts. He was sentenced to prison for four years but was released early in fall 1944. While in prison in Lincolnshire, he photographed his fellow inmates and helped produce plays.

After the war, he worked with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, and moved to a studio near Covent Garden. He photographed productions such as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and Carousel. He photographed performers Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Edith Evans, and Britain’s first Black ballet company, Les Ballets Nègres. McBean also produced a series of photographs of LGBTQ+ figures, Tennessee Williams, Quentin Crisp, Danny La Rue, and others.

In the 1960s McBean worked with musicians after theatres embraced more realistic photography fitting for the kitchen sink dramas emerging at the time. He worked with Shirley Bassey, Cliff Richard and The Shadows, and The Beverley Sisters. McBean’s photograph of The Beatles on the EMI offices balcony is most well-known.

McBean’s career spanned from the 1930s to the 1980s. In 1976, the Impressions Gallery in York, England held a retrospective of McBean’s work entitled, “A Darker Side of the Moon: The Photographs of Angus McBean.” McBean sold his 8-ton archive to Harvard University around the same time. In 1984, he appeared in David Sylvian’s “Red Guitar” music video directed by Anton Corbijn. The video paid tribute to McBean’s 1938 photograph, Flora Robson Surrealised.

A second collection appearing in 1985 brought renewed interest in McBean, who later created a set of fashion photographs for L’officiel and French Vogue. Making images of Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier, McBean continued working in fashion and pop culture until his death in 1990. A fall while on holiday in Morocco brought him to the Ipswich Heath Road Hospital, where he died on his eighty-sixth birthday. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London held a retrospective of McBean’s work. 

About the Authors

Troy Wise is currently a PhD student at UAL Central St Martins and teaches fashion and graphic design at London College of Contemporary Arts. His background is in marketing and is founder and co-editor of Image Amplified. He lives in, and is continually fascinated by, the city of London.

Rick Guzman earned his most recent MA at UAL Central St Martins in Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. He currently holds two MA’s and an MBA in the New Media, Journalism and International Business fields. Co-editor at Image Amplified since its start, he lives in London, is fascinated by history and is motivated by continuing to learn and explore.

Sources:

Barnebys

Blitz Magazine

British Photo History

Gay for Today

Harvard Library

Independent 

Legacy Project Chicago

Photographs by Angus McBean