Biography provided by Focal press
 
Born in South Wales, McBean studied architecture before settling for a banking clerk's job. By 1925 family circumstances forced him to move to London where he worked for a prominent antiques dealer for seven years (sales and restoration). He learned photography from Hugh Cecil and began constructing and photographing masks. This series of events lead to McBean's eventual talent as one of the world's leading theatrical photographers. He is best known for his work constructing elaborate studio sets, mask making, costuming, manipulation techniques — all to produce personality and stage production images that have a very surreal look — almost like photographic versions of a Salvador Dali landscape. He photographed stage versions of McBeth sixteen times in four decades. Noted celebrity subjects include Audrey Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lawrence Olivier, and Vivian Leigh (the later photographed by McBean dozens of times over thirty years). Many of McBean's photographs are stark illusions and startling depictions of lifelike heads and torsos, pieces of classical architecture, emerging from a sandy wasteland. Later in his career he photographed the Beatles for 1963 and 1970 album covers, and did color fashions for Vogue in the mid-1980s. His annual Christmas card creations, sent to friends since 1936, have become a valuable auction item. In 1968 Harvard University purchased all of his theater negatives — 48,000 images weighing four and a half tons.
 
(Author: KW)
 
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409] (Used with permission)