Obituary: Maker of lovely faces

KEVYN AUCOIN, makeup artist, died aged 40.

Many of today's famous women facing a photo shoot clamoured for the services of Kevyn Aucoin. In an age obsessed by image, his powers were regarded by some as almost magical.

His clients included Madonna, Julia Roberts, Britney Spears, Cindy Crawford, Gwyneth Paltrow, to name a few. His art was said to lie in being able to reveal in his subjects a beauty hitherto unsuspected even by themselves.

Aucoin, who was being treated for a pituitary brain tumour in the past year, was born in 1962 at Shreveport, Louisiana.

His interest in makeup began when he was about 11, borrowing his adoptive mother's orange lipstick to make up his five-year-old sister and keenly reading fashion magazines.

From an early age he realised he was homosexual and claimed later that he had found death threats in his school locker and had been pelted by fellow pupils with rocks.

In 1983, after attending a course in hairstyling at a beauty school, Aucoin moved to New York with his boyfriend Jed Root (subsequently his agent) and began doing free makeup sessions for models.

His big break came when a model took him into the offices of Vogue, where the beauty editor liked his portfolio. By 1986 he did his first Vogue cover, and did 18 American Vogue covers over the next three years.

Career highlights listed on his website this week consisted of a series of magazine covers, including Vogue Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal and featuring the faces of the stars he worked on - Janet Jackson, Linda Evangelista and Sharon Stone in addition to those already mentioned.

Aucoin was also a prominent activist for gay rights. He wrote books on the art of makeup and had recently started his own product line.