Society photographer Cecil Beaton is most celebrated for his groundbreaking portraits of aristocrats and Hollywood stars, but he was also a skilled painter, gardener and flower arranger.
Many of his most famous photographs feature floral displays that he designed himself, or in collaboration with the fashionable floral decorator Constance Spry.
In 1947 Beaton bought Reddish House in Wiltshire, where he created the cutting garden depicted in this painting. The picture shows nasturtiums and morning glory, which are not traditional cut flowers but typical of the alternative blooms that Beaton and Spry championed in their designs.
The Garden Museum has strong holdings of 20th-century artworks relating to gardens and their making, and this picture joins the collection as a record of the taste and influence of an important figure in the field.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Cutting Garden Flowers, c1960-65
Date supported
2021
Medium and material
Oil
Dimensions
55.9 x 45.5cm
Grant
3152
Total cost
12900
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