A Life in Light & Imagination: Remembering Angus McBean
For the A/W 2006 print issue of .Cent Stephen Jones, the renowned milliner, known for his long career working with top fashion designers, guest-edited an issue titled The Whimsey Issue. His creative hats are seen as more than accessories, helping express confidence, femininity, and individuality. Blending elegance, humour, and imagination, his work brings a joyful and whimsical vision to fashion. One of his favourite image makers was photographer Angus McBean, and here we explore beyond his pictures into the man behind the lens. Image on left, Angus McBean Book
Angus McBean, Photographer, 8 June 1904 – 9 June 1990
A Life in Light and Imagination: Remembering Angus McBean is a personal tribute to the visionary photographer, highlighting his late-career revival and surreal, theatrical style through the eye of photographer and friend Mike Owen. With personal stories of his vivid studio anecdotes as well as his international shoots, McBean emerges as both a master of imaginative photography and a man of great humility and warmth, leaving a lasting legacy on the art form and those who knew him.
Famous photographers
Mike Owen took time out from his photographic career to assist one of his heroes, photographer Angus McBean. Bodger is a slang term used to describe a photographer, and one Laurence Olivier used to call Angus McBean.
The Early Years
Stephen Jones: The photographer Mike Owen and I were old friends from when we were at college, and he had taken many photos of my hats (and still takes my passport photos!). In the mid-80s, he was also assisting Angus McBean. Angus, along with Madame Yvonde, had been rediscovered by New Romantics who appreciated these photographers‘ sense of theatre and whimsy, which in turn was be re-interpreted by Pierre and Gilles, and Derek Jarman.
Angus McBean Portrait Photographer
Mike had said that I could be part of the series of portraits that were being shot for Life magazine, which included Hamish Bowles and Vivienne Westwood. I arrived at the studio with a full hat box, and immediately, Angus set to chopping a hole in the base; in fact, he seemed almost more interested in making the set than taking a photo. The label was cut out of the top of the box and stuck on the side, and when I commented that it looked a bit rough, he said, ” No one will notice! Mike manoeuvred the heavy lights, and Angus chose the bright pink hat, Waimea, from the “She” collection from 1987. I posed, and he took just two frames; one straight on, the other profile. Life dropped the picture, but Mike gave me the transparencies. They have never before been reproduced in a magazine, only in Stephen Calloway’s 1994 book Baroque, Baroque.
‘with all his old enthusiasm undimmed, McBean embraced, for the first time, the possibilities of colour, creating some memorable fashion shots and affectionate portraits of those of a younger generation to whom he was, as he found to his amusement, something of a hero.‘
Stephen Jones
‘The School for Scandal’ (1963) by Angus McBean,
Inside the Life Angus McBean
Mike Owens: Angus was one of the rare people you meet in your lifetime, who leave an indelible mark on your soul, a stain on your heart that will never fade. No other photographer has made such an impression on me, not only by his immense talent and imagination but by the way he conducted himself, the way he lived his life. Here was a man with an incredible wealth of work, who treated everybody equally, from the delivery boy to the movie star he was photographing: there were no airs and graces, no tantrums, no falseness, just a friendly smile, a kind word for everybody. He approached life with open eyes. He was so excited to still be able to work in the business he loved into his late seventies. Everyone who met Angus adored working with him. Here was a man with incredible vision, whether it was doing a portrait of Derek Jarman, French Vogue or an album cover for Carmel. Every session was a wonderful journey, a pleasure and an honour.
Behind the Scenes of his Photography
He always worked with a lovely battered old 5X4 camera and beautiful theatre tungsten spotlight on cumbersome archaic stands, with extremely dodgy electrics that would never pass today’s stringent health and safety guidelines! Often the connections would arc and fizz, but it was exciting, it was different, it was a fantasy world of surreal delights.
One of the great things about my job is that sometimes you get to meet your heroes, people who have inspired you, people who have motivated you, touched your imagination. Angus was definitely not a disappointment. I knew of his work from an exhibition in the foyer of the National Theatre, and subsequently an exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery and then through the launch of his book at the Old Vic.
I was commissioned to take his portrait for Blitz Magazine in February 1983 at the Cadogan Hotel. Here was an incredible individual with an amazing sense of style. He had this amazing, thick, bizarre tweed suit with a multi-coloured tie, all designed by himself; he looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Beau Brummell.
I was commissioned to take his portrait for Blitz in February 1983 at the Cadogan Hotel. Here was an incredible individual with an amazing sense of style. He had this amazing, thick, bizarre tweed suit with a multi-coloured tie, all designed by himself; he looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Beau Brummell.
I duly turned up at the appointed hour full of fear and trepidation, perspiring slightly, for here was one of the world’s great photographers, revered throughout the business for his unique approach and amazing skill in transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, the great surrealist photographer, and here was me, a shallow youth fresh out of art school, and now I had to take his portrait. This was the man who had taken portraits of everybody and anybody in the past fifty years, from Laurence Olivier to the Beatles. How was I to equate myself with that? I tried my best; I shot him lying on the bed at a jaunty angle. It was not a great picture, but, instead of arrogance on his part, there was nothing but praise and encouragement, something I was not expecting. I left feeling relieved and incredible fondness for such a wonderful man.
Photograph of Mary Irene Cathcart Wellcome L0023910 by Angus McBean
A couple of weeks later, I was invited to a fashionable dinner party. Imagine my surprise to find myself sitting between Koo Stark and Angus. I sat enthralled listening to Angus telling his wonderful tales of working with the greats of the British theatre and the music industry; telling me how he made a model of Mac West and showed it to her when he photographed her; discovered that he had built the incredible sets himself with cotton wool and string and he had just put a bathroom in his house even though he was by then in his seventies.
He asked me enthusiastically about my own work and offered friendly and constructive advice. He then said he had been commissioned to shoot some fashion and portrait work that had come about through his exhibition. He was, however, extremely hesitant because he had not worked in more than ten years. He no longer had a studio or an assistant. I jumped at the chance and offered my services pro-bono, my studio, anything that could help. What resulted was one of the most illuminating and enjoyable periods of my life.
My studio was in Clink Street, down by London Bridge, a very Dickensian area back then. The studio was on the fifth floor, and there was no lift! Even though Angus had a bad leg, he never once complained, unlike so many of the young models who came on castings. He didn’t use a light meter or a Polaroid back; everything was judged and fine-tuned by eye, from years of experience. He was One Shot McBean! After a time, I managed to get him to take polaroids (but only for the clients he insisted) and to take more than one frame, sometimes even four. There was never a bad session, and 99 per cent felt incredibly honoured to be photographed by him. (The only bad sitter was Jancis Robinson, the TV wine critic, who had no idea who he was and was just plain rude.) On one occasion in 1985, we went to the Theatre Royal, Bath, to photograph a play called The Cocktail Party. It was fascinating to see how Angus prepared himself for the shoot. He sat through the play the night before, making copious notes, taking stage directions, important lines and facial angles etc. The next day, he assembled the cast, quoted their lines at them, directed their actions and recreated the play for his camera. I had never worked so hard in my life, moving a heavy 5X4 camera all over the stage, reloading film and moving the cumbersome lights. This was his trade.
Another time in 1985, I managed to convince Angus to model for me in a series of dapper suits for Unique Magazine. Later on, thanks to the imagination of Hamish Bowles, I accompanied Angus to Paris to do a surreal fashion story on French socialites for Harpers & Queen. We were subsequently invited to dinner with Christian Lacroix. The couturier later wrote of Angus that his style was
‘a cultivated surrealism, at once naive and sophisticated… where there reigned a spirit of unbridled licence, bare-faced kitsch and an evident delight in doing exactly what he wanted to… untroubled by the slightest concern about breaking the rules or offending either common sense or good taste.’
Later that year, he did a session with Stephen Jones, for which he inevitably posed him coming out of hat boxes. Hamish then commissioned Angus to photograph another fashion spread in Marrakech, where Angus had a home. Excited by the idea, Angus set off to Morocco to prepare for the shoot. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, he began to suffer from chest and stomach complaints, and it became imperative to fly Angus back to England to his local hospital in Ipswich. I went to see him, and he appeared to be making a good recovery, cracking jokes, on being told that he could take any drugs for his ailments…
‘I couldn’t possibly take them, they’re so habit-forming.’
Angus McBean
Soon after, he had a relapse and on Saturday, 9th June 1990, 86 years and one day, he died. I implore you to go and see Angus McBean’s work to witness the art of photography, when skill and imagination counted, where creativity was recognised, where you used lights to create an illusion, where you built your own sets without the help of a computer.
As Quentin Crisp said about his former lover, Angus: ‘To this end, even on great beauties, every surface that was at half-moon, that was passing from light to dark, was retouched from the texture of an orange to the smoothness of an apple. With some sitters, everything was retouched but their titles. One woman, while he was deciding what to do with her, snatched up in both hands the swags of superfluous flesh that encumbered her jaw bones and said, ‘You do understand me, don’t you, that all this is not part of the essential me.’
Mike Owen
A Lasting Impression
A Life in Light and Imagination: Remembering Angus McBean reminds us that his legacy lives on not only in his images but in the imagination and humanity behind them. He created entire worlds with simple tools and pure vision, proving that true artistry comes from creativity, not technology. For those who knew him, it was a privilege, and his influence endures as a lasting inspiration.
If you enjoyed reading A Life in Light and Imagination: Remembering Angus McBean, then why not read Mashup: Fishermen & Kings: The Photography of Olive Edis
For more information on visit here, Angus McBean
To explore Mike Owen’s Photography, please visit mikeowenphotography.co.uk
To explore the Old Vic, please visit here
.Cent Magazine London. Luxury Minded
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