Hugh Cecil (1889 - 1974, Brighton, UK) was a prominent English photographer of the 1910s-1930s. Though he was first lauded for his landscapes at the Cambridge Photographic Society, he soon became London’s most sought-after portrait photographer, with subjects ranging from famous actors to members of high society and even the royal family. Cecil's work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Getty Museum, CA.

This photograph was once owned by Cecil Beaton, whose relationship with Hugh Cecil inspired his career as a photographer. As Beaton developed aspirations to become a London socialite, he contacted Hugh Cecil under the guise of a Vogue editor in need of a portrait for his mother. Knowing Hugh Cecil’s influence and the prominence of his subjects, the portrait of Cecil Beaton’s mother soon graced many of Britain’s preeminent magazines, securing his social position and inspiring his own desire to become a photographer. The pictures he would take of his mother, after seeing Hugh Cecil’s process, were his first published photographs.