'Summer dress for Heather Firbank'

1 portrait of

by Cecil Beaton
10 x 8 inch colour film transparency, 1962
Accepted in lieu of tax by H.M. Government and allocated to the Gallery, 1991
Photographs Collection
NPG x40652

Artistback to top

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

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1962back to top

Current affairs

After a series of by-election defeats, the prime minister, Harold MacMillan organises a drastic cabinet reshuffle, dismissing one third of his cabinet. Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe's wry comment summed up the desperate action: 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life.'
Britain suffers the 'Big Freeze' with no frost-free nights between 22nd December 1962 and 5th March 1963.

Art and science

The Beatles have their first hit with Love Me Do and release their first album Please Please Me.
The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated and creates a showcase for British artistic talent with the first performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, a wall hanging by Graham Sutherland, stained glass by John Piper, and sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Elizabeth Frink.

International

The world comes to the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response to the USA's nuclear advantage, the USSR sent missiles to Cuba. The crisis lasted for 12 days before a deal was finally stuck between Khrushchev and Kennedy in which the Cuban missile bases were dismantled in return for the secret removal of US missiles from Turkey.

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Julia Rea

29 January 2020, 13:18

The sitter in this portrait is not Heather Firbank herself- she passed away several years before this photograph was taken. The photograph is part of a series commissioned by the V&A Museum of models wearing the recently donated wardrobe of Heather Firbank, in order to promote their 1960 exhibition 'A Lady of Fashion: Heather Firbank.'