Portrait of Karen Blixen
From a photograph by Cecil Beaton.
What drew mw to this picture, was how different it seemed from other images on the internet.
Karen Blixen, Baroness Christenze von Blixen- Finecke was a prolific author, and is most famous for her autobiographical novel “Out of Africa” (which was made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.) She had a remarkable life, She worked hard to maintain the coffee plantation in Kenya that she and her husband took on in 1914 which he seems to have little interest. After it’s final failure and divorce from her husband she developed her independence as a writer. And this is the image that she shows the world, independent, feisty, couldn’t give a damn, take me or leave me. Yet Beaton’s photograph of her seems to portray an almost wistful, diffident woman.
I started off with a monochrome sketch using Sennelier Caput Mortuum. The face is coming right, though she looks more anxious than wistful. I then started a pastel portrait, with the face occupying the whole picture, and it was awful. Looking at the photograph again, I realised I should have paid more attention to how Cecil Beaton had subtly obtained his image, by dwarfing his subject with a much larger background than is usual in portraits, and engulfing her in that huge fur coat.
So I tried again, and the final picture is better, though I still haven’t captured the fragility of the subject. And as usual, I am too impatient with the fur!
Beaton writes in his diary that he had wanted to photograph her for a long time, and when she finally agreed, the message was, “Come soon or I won’t be here”. He went to her immediately. Two weeks later she died.
The Book I have of Cecil Beaton’s photographs is titled “Cecil Beaton Portraits and Profiles”. It is especially interesting as the commentary contains Cecil’s own observations on his subjects taken from his Diaries, and biographical notes by Hugo Vickers, who was his official biographer. (The book is published by Frances Lincoln Ltd. It is a high quality book that is rather expensive, but I bought mine second hand on Amazon, and it is fine.)