The late Cecil Beaton started his now legendary career as a staff photographer for Vanity Fair and Vogue. However, his decade working for Vogue came to an end in 1938, after he inserted an anti-semitic word into a photograph for a story on New York society. He was fired from Vogue, and returned to England. He spent the next years attempting to rebuild his reputation, working as a war photographer, and later took many portraits of the Royal family, including the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the birth of King Charles III.

Beaton today is also known for the portraits and fashion photographs he made in the 1960s and 1970s – many of them taken at, or using floral designs he created from his gardens at Ashcombe House and Reddish House – the 18th century manor Beaton transformed in the village of Broad Chalke, Wiltshire. A new exhibition at the Garden Museum explores Beaton’s ongoing fascination with horticulture in his life and work. The display includes this spectacular black and white portrait of Bianca Jagger taken in Beaton’s gardens at Reddish in 1978, wearing a sumptuous Zandra Rhodes lace dress. Jagger appears in several portraits by Beaton, a shoot that would become one of his most iconic, capturing the mood of an era while creating an image of timeless elegance and beauty that endures to today.

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