A blogger has posted on The Tweed Pig a well known 1930s photo of Evelyn Waugh and explained its progeny. The photo was selected from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery as a gift:
I went for the photograph … of Evelyn Waugh by (Madame) Yevonde Middleton. My friend is a fan of the City look, though I’m not sure what he thinks about having Evelyn Waugh hanging on his wall. The photo has it all though — pinstripe suit, brolly, bowler hat and cigar…Yevonde Middleton was an English society portrait photographer who was active from the Edwardian era right up to her death in the 1970s. She’s best known for her work in the 1930s, in particular the Goddesses series for which she had guests at a party, who were dressed as gods and goddesses, pose for her…Yevonde was a pioneer of colour photography, using an early British process called Vivex, where the image was built up from three exposures in each primary colour.
Madame Yevonde is also credited with the photo of Waugh that illustrates the dust wrapper of the UK edition of the recent biography by Philip Eade. (See also Martin Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, following p 306.) The blog post is handsomely illustrated with the Waugh portrait as well as other examples of the photographer’s work.
