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CAMERA'S GREATEST MAGICIAN
The roots of photographer Angus McBean
One
of the most influential and famous photographers of the twentieth
century, Angus McBean (pronounced like McBain as in rain) was
variously described as “a genius”, by Lord Snowdon, and the “best
photographer in the country” by Cecil Beaton. His portraits and
increasingly surreal images were claimed to have revolutionised
portraiture, especially in the British Theatre, and his work helped
launch the careers of the likes of Audrey Hepburn (left) and Vivien
Leigh.
Recently, his superb collection of work
has undergone a period of rediscovery by arts critics and the public
alike, largely thanks to the efforts of arts journalist and lecturer,
Adrian Woodhouse, and 2006 saw a retrospective of McBean’s
work at the National Portrait Gallery in London whilst March 2007 saw the start of a three-month exhibition of his work in McBean’s native land at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
 So
where does Abertillery fit into the Angus McBean story? Well, Angus
McBean’s early connections are strongly rooted in the town. The BBC has
recently trailed its programme on McBean (pictured in one of his
self-portraits left) calling him the “Newport-born” artist. This
though is incorrect and, in fact, McBean was born in the valleys in a
rented terraced house at Newbridge on 8th June 1904. Less
than ten months later, the family had moved up to Aberbeeg, from where
his mother Irene ‘Cherry’ Thomas, the eldest daughter of Rowena and
William Thomas, a highly successful grocer and an Abertillery Urban
District councillor living at Gold Tops in the village, came.
McBean’s father was Clement McBean, who
had been born in 1877 in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. There in the
mid-1870s James McBean, Angus’ grandfather, had married Elizabeth
Phillips, his housekeeper. James McBean was born in the remote Scottish
highland village of Urray and apparently had been in the army, where he
learnt the trade of surveying, before making his way to south-west
Wales. By 1881, James McBean, his wife and then three children, Clem and
his two sisters, had moved east and were living in High Street,
Abertillery. Ten years later, James McBean was now calling himself
Architect and Surveyor with the family house at 1 King Street and in
1894, he was appointed the newly-formed Abertillery Urban District’s
first Engineer and Surveyor. This was an exciting yet onerous position
as Abertillery was just beginning to expand dramatically to become the
second–biggest town in the county of Monmouthshire. In his task early
on, he was assisted by son Clem, who by the turn of the century was
making his own way in the world as a mining surveyor and who was
responsible for much of the underground surveying in the collieries in
and around Abertillery.
In the spring of 1901, Clement McBean
married Cherry Thomas. Clem was considered to be the brightest of the
McBean boys although some claimed that Cherry Thomas had married beneath
her. The newly weds led a somewhat itinerant life in the area owing to
Clem’s work and in 1904 they found themselves in Newbridge where Angus
was born. However, Cherry Thomas apparently wanted a better style of
life and Clem started road surveying rather than working underground. In
1910, there was another addition to the family in the shape of a girl,
Beatrice Rowena, who went under her second name after the Cherry’s
mother.
With some money behind them, mostly due to
Cherry’s family, the two McBean children were sent to various schools
although they often visited the family homes in Abertillery. Ironically,
in view of his father’s and grandfather’s role in the industry, he
apparently derided the town as “a quite dreadful town of landscapes
ruined by mining” yet he took pride in his father’s reputation for his
skills in planning and driving underground galleries. It is not
surprising that Abertillery, with its increasingly overcrowded
conditions and features despoiled by mining waste, might have appeared
an ugly place to someone with an aesthete’s eye that the young Angus
possessed.
He
was to return to the town on many more occasions as he grew up and
indeed kept in touch with some relatives such as cousin, Beryl Jones
(nee Moore) for years to come, sometimes through his now-celebrated
Christmas cards, although his visits diminished following the death of
James McBean, his grandfather.
In 1915, Clement McBean went to war but
was invalided out after contacting TB. However, with James’ death, a
bequest helped support the family and in 1917, Angus started at Monmouth
School, initially as a day pupil and then a boarder. There he began to
develop his interest in photography and years later his eye for beauty,
his highly imaginative use of light and imagery, skill with light and
technical brilliance was to earn him the sobriquet of Camera's Greatest
Magician.
McBean's cover photograph for
The Beatles' Please Please Me album.
TYLERI TALES
Contents:
 THE
HORROR OF 1921 - THE HAROLD JONES MURDERS
THE
FOUNDING FATHER OF DRUG METABOLISM - the story of Professor RT
Williams, FRS
THE
BLAINA RIOTS OF 1935 - Desperation and unrest in the Ebbw Fach
valley (by Martyn Thomas)
THE
MODEST, HARD MAN - Jim Webb, Wales rugby star of the Golden era
THE
MAN WHO BOWLED W. G. GRACE FOR A DUCK - Abertillery cricket
memories of the 1890s
THE
WAR HERO WHO TESTED THE BRITISH H-BOMB - Air Vice Marshall
Wilfred Oulton
THE
MARIE STOPES CONNECTION - Britain's first-ever hospital birth
control clinic opens at Abertillery
THE
REDOUBTABLE DAGGARS - A remarkable tale of an extraordinary
Abertillery family (by David Daggar)
THE
ABERBEEG GHOST
HEROES
OF WORLD WAR ONE
THE
"LIB" CLUB - BRITAIN'S BEST SNOOKER TEAM
(by Graham Bennett)
CAMERA'S
GREATEST MAGICIAN - the humble beginnings of Angus McBean
Coming
soon:
THE
TRAGEDY OF SIX BELLS - the terrible pit disaster of 1960
A
CHARITABLE ACCIDENT - Eddie Price, founder of the Tenovus
charity
THREE
LIONS IN THE SHIRT - Pask, Morgan, and Lewis, stars of the Green
& Whites
THE
MEN WHO BECAME SAINTS
THE
MAN IN THE MIDDLE
AHEAD
OF HER TIME - The extraordinary story of Beatrice Green
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