China 1944: A destitute boy with a wicker basket in the Poor People's Refuge in Changsa

Cecil Beaton died nearly 40 years ago, but he remains as relevant now as he was in life. He was one of those extraordinary life-enhancers who lifted people out of their everyday lives and gave them something to dream about. Sotheby’s owns the magnificent archive of his life’s work as a photographer, from his earliest days until the last difficult years following his stroke. We think of Cecil Beaton first and foremost as a photographer, and he invested his photographs with style and glamour. There was also a strong element of theatricality. He liked to bring the best out of his sitters, so very often he dressed the set as in a stage production, to place them in context. His all seeing eye took in faults – he did not look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles – but having seen these faults, he disguised them by posing his sitters to their best effect.

Broad Chalke, UK