Evelyn Waugh

1 portrait of Evelyn Waugh

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Evelyn Waugh

by Cecil Beaton
bromide print on white card mount, April 1955
9 1/8 in. x 9 3/8 in. (233 mm x 238 mm)
Given by Cecil Beaton, 1968
Photographs Collection
NPG x14230

Sitterback to top

  • Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Novelist. Sitter associated with 53 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), Photographer, designer and writer. Artist or producer associated with 1114 portraits, Sitter associated with 360 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 156 Read entry

    The novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) had been aware of the Sitwells since his undergraduate days. He was in the audience at the Aeolian Hall performance of Façade and by 1930 had become a friend. The account in his diary of staying at Renishaw that summer is one of the most memorable evocations of the Sitwells en famille.1 Edith's conversion to Catholicism in 1955 was an event of particular significance for Waugh, himself a convert of some twenty-five years standing. He wrote to welcome her into the faith and acted as godfather at her reception. He had written to Edith's spiritual adviser, Father Philip Caraman, about his worries that 'the papers may take her up as a kind of Garbo-Queen Christina’2 but the occasion at Farm Street Church passed without incident. Writing to Edith to thank her for lunch afterwards at the Sesame Club he confided the irresistible truth of his own conversion: 'I know I am awful. But how much more awful I should he without the Faith.'3

    Waugh had known Cecil Beaton since he bullied him at prep school and seldom let the opportunity slip to needle him in adult life. 'Ostensibly we were friends',4 wrote Beaton in his diary, admitting that with ambitions in common it suited them both at times to pretend that the hatchet had been buried. The photograph was taken at the Duff Coopers' house at Chantilly.

    1 The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, Penguin, 1986 edn, pp 327-8.

    2 Quoted in Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell, A Unicorn among Lions, 1981, p 318.

    3 Ibid., p 319.

    4 C. Beaton, The Strenuous Years, 1973, p 70.

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1955back to top

Current affairs

Robert Anthony Eden becomes prime minister. In May 1955 Winston Churchill resigned due to ill health. His successor proved to be a similarly popular leader, winning an increased majority at the general election that year. Eden's popularity was due to a combination of his long wartime service, good looks and charm.

Art and science

Mary Quant introduces the 'Chelsea Look' with her Bazaar boutique. In the 1960s Quant was a major contributor to 'swinging London' introducing some of the seminal items of 1960s fashion: the miniskirt, hot pants, paint-box make-up and plastic raincoats.

International

West Germany joins NATO, prompting the East European Communist counties to respond by forming the Warsaw Pact. The signatories of the Warsaw Pact pledged to defend each other if any member was attacked. This development was a major event in the Cold War as it firmly established the East and West as opposing military powers.

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