W.H. Auden

1 portrait by Cecil Beaton

© Cecil Beaton Archive / Condé Nast

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W.H. Auden

by Cecil Beaton
vintage bromide print on white card mount, 1930
9 1/2 in. x 7 5/8 in. (240 mm x 195 mm)
Given by Cecil Beaton, 1972
Primary Collection
NPG P869(3)

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), Photographer, designer and writer. Artist or producer associated with 1113 portraits, Sitter associated with 360 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Whilst Auden was in Berlin he wrote 'Paid on Both Sides; a Charade', which T.S. Eliot accepted for the Criterion magazine. On his return to England in 1929, Auden resolved to accept his homosexuality and broke off his engagement. This portrait was the first of three sittings Auden gave to Beaton during his life, and coincides with Faber and Faber's publication of Auden's book, Poems. In 1930, Auden became a schoolmaster in Dunbartonshire and also began to write collaboratively with Christopher Isherwood.

Linked publicationsback to top

Events of 1930back to top

Current affairs

Amy Johnson is the first woman to fly solo to Australia. She flew the 11,000 miles from Croydon to Darwin in a De Havilland Gipsy Moth named Jason and won the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE for her achievement. She went on to break a number of other flying records, and died while serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.

Art and science

Noel Coward's play, Private Lives is first performed. The original run starred Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier as well as Coward himself. Private Lives became Coward's most enduringly successful play.

International

Gandhi leads the Salt March. The march to the coast was a direct protest against the British monopoly on the sale of salt and inspired hordes of Indians to follow him and adopt his methods of Satyagraha (non-violent resistance to the British rule of India).
Stalin orders the 'liquidation of the kulaks (wealthy farmers) as a class' in a violent attempt to centralise control of agriculture and collectivise farming.

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