For the British political figure, Lord Hugh Cecil (1869-1956), see Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood

Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood

Hugh Richard Heathcote Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood PC , styled Lord Hugh Cecil until 1941, was a British Conservative Party politician.-Background and education:...

Hugh Cecil Saunders (14 December 18921974) was a celebrated English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 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

Tonbridge School

Tonbridge School is a British boys' independent school for both boarding and day pupils in Tonbridge, Kent, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judd . It is a member of the Eton Group, and has close links with the Worshipful Company of Skinners, one of the oldest London livery companies...

 and Queens' College

Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...

 Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 where he became interested in photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

. 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

Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...

 photographer H. Essenhigh Corke. In 1912 he moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and, dropping his surname, set up as a professional portrait photographer at 100 Victoria Street.

Hugh Cecil's photographs appeared regularly in the Sketch and Tatler

Tatler

Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...

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

Gertrude Lawrence

Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...

http://www.art.co.uk/asp/sp-asp/_/pd--12334412/Gertrude_Lawrence_Actress.htm and, in 1925, the then-Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

 (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

Paul Tanqueray

Paul Tanqueray was an English photographer.Tanqueray was born in Littlehampton, Sussex. Tanqueray first became interested in the theatre and photography when he was at Tonbridge School and won the school's Photographic prize...

 and Angus McBean

Angus McBean

Angus McBean , was a Welsh photographer, associated with surrealism.-Biography:Angus McBean was born in South Wales in June 1904. Despite the surname and the family's claim to be head of the sub-clan McBean, they had been Welsh for generations. Clem McBean was a surveyor in the mines and the family...

, 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

1920s

File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...

. He later experimented with the photographic machine that became the basis of the Photo-Me studios that can be used to obtain instant identity photographs for passports and other official documents.

External links

• Brief biographical sketch at the National Portrait Gallery