Hugh Cecil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the British political figure, Lord Hugh Cecil (1869-1956), see Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood
Hugh Cecil Saunders (1889—after 1939) was a celebrated English photographer of the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, who practised under the professional name of Hugh Cecil.
Hugh Cecil Saunders received his education at Tonbridge School and Queens' College Cambridge where he became interested in photography. At the Cambridge Photographic Society, he exhibited a number of landscapes, some of which were singled out for high quality and bestowed with medals.
Upon graduation, Saunders served as an apprentice with the prominent Sevenoaks photographer H. Essenhigh Corke. In 1912 he moved to London and, dropping his surname, set up as a professional portrait photographer at 100 Victoria Street.
Hugh Cecil's photographs appeared regularly in the Daily Sketch and Tatler magazines, and his reputation as a fashionable photographer quickly grew. His early style was characterised by an elegant simplicity. Cecil moved to 8 Grafton Street in 1923—designing and furnishing an elaborately decorated studio, he often used patterned backdrops and lit the subject using soft reflected light.
His portraits at the time included Gertrude Lawrence[1] and, in 1925, the then-Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) sat for the first of many royal sittings. In 1926 Cecil published his Book of Beauty, consisting of 37 photogravures accompanied by selected verses.
Established as a success, Cecil appointed pupil/assistants Paul Tanqueray and Angus McBean, who actually took many of his photographs from the 1930s onwards. Although the studio continued as a functioning entity until the Second World War, Cecil's renowned pupils were, by that time, no longer associated with it, leaving Cecil unable to equal his sumptuous photographs of the twenties.
