34 OF 1114 
Cyril Connolly
34 of 1114 portraits by Cecil Beaton
© Cecil Beaton Archive / Condé Nast
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Cyril Connolly
by Cecil Beaton
vintage bromide print on white card mount, 1942
6 3/4 in. x 9 1/2 in. (172 mm x 240 mm)
Given by Cecil Beaton, 1972
Primary Collection
NPG P869(7)
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. 145 Read entry
Pearson describes the relationship of Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) with the Sitwells as 'part worshipping, part mocking, part secretly resenting',1 an ambivalence common to many who knew the trio. A journalist and critic, Connolly first came across the Sitwells in Granada in 1925. 'All of them were wearing black capes and black Andalusian hats and looked magnificent ... we immediately became great friends.'2 Yet the following year he wrote to Noel Blakiston that 'Edith is tedious, humourless and combative, Osbert advertises, Sashie [sic] is the most remote’3 and by 1932 he had become 'little imperceptible Mr Cyril Connolly' to Edith. As in the case of other intellectuals of the younger generation, it was Edith's war poetry that brought Connolly round again. He described 'The Song of the Cold' as 'a staggering poem, like a symphony composed around one single octave’4 and the July 1947 issue of Horizon, which he co-edited with Stephen Spender, was dedicated to the Sitwells. Shortly before his death Connolly delivered his final verdict: 'the Sitwells were a dazzling monument to the English scene. They absolutely enhanced life for us during the twenties, and had they not been there a whole area of art and life would have been missing.’5
Connolly had known Beaton since their schooldays at St Cyprian's in Bournemouth and published some of Beaton's North African wartime experiences in Horizon in the same year that Beaton was commissioned to photograph Connolly for Vogue.
1 John Pearson, Façades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, 1978, p 189.
2 Quoted in John Pearson, Façades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, 1978, p 189.
3 Quoted in Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell, A Unicorn among Lions, 1981, p 102.
4 Quoted in Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell, A Unicorn among Lions, 1981, p 248.
5 Quoted in John Pearson, Façades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, 1978, p 190.
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 140
Events of 1942back to top
Current affairs
The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief is founded in Oxford with the aim of sending food through the Allied blockade of Nazi-Occupied Greece. The organisation continued after the war to relieve suffering as a result of the war in Europe, and eventually to help distressed peoples internationally. It gradually became known as Oxfam, after its telegraph address, and is now one of the largest international development and aid agencies.Art and science
Desert Island Discs is broadcast for the first time. Each week a famous guest is invited to select which eight pieces of music they would choose to take if they were castaway on an island. The show is still going and is the longest running music programme on radio.Enid Blyton publishes her first Famous Five children's book: Five On A Treasure Island.
International
The Allied forces sign the 'Declaration by United Nations', pledging the signatories to fight together until the end of the war and establishing an international organisation with the aim of upholding world peace and security with Sir Gladwyn Jebb as the first Secretary General.In Berlin, senior Nazis plan the 'Final Solution' to exterminate European Jews, and start building death camps to carry it out.
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