A large-format vintage photograph, inscribed and signed on the mount ('Best wishes, Thomas Beecham')
The gelatin silver photograph (200 × 150 mm) has some minor silvering-out; the original mount (245 × 320 mm) is a little bumped on the corners, well clear of the image and the signature. The verso of the mount is inkstamped 'Copyright ... "the Sydney Morning Herald" and "The Home"'.
Beecham toured Australia in 1940, and this portrait was presumably produced and signed then. Sir Thomas Beecham, the son of a wealthy industrialist, 'made his debut in 1905. In 1906 he founded the New Symphony Orchestra and in 1910 initiated a series of opera seasons at Covent Garden. The following year he introduced Diaghilev's Ballets Russes to London. He strove to establish opera permanently in Britain and to improve operatic and orchestral performances. Admired for the verve and elegance of his interpretations, he was associated particularly with music by Haydn, Mozart, Delius, Sibelius and Richard Strauss. He founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946, was artistic director at Covent Garden 1932-39, and lived in the US (1940-44). In 1916 he was knighted, succeeded to his father's baronetcy in the same year, and received a CH in 1957' ('Dictionary of World Biography'). Provenance: Collection of The Hon Barry Jones AC.
Item #115531
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