In the immediate post-war years Brandt showed his willingness to evolve by turning to more creative works. By now Brandt was experimenting with an extremely wide-angle lens (originally designed for industry) which lent his landscapes, most evident in his iconic image of the prehistoric Stonehenge monument, a vast impression of space and depth. His experimentations with the same lens on close shots of the human body, meanwhile, brought his nudes a uniquely distorted, or abstract, quality. To celebrate the centenary of his birth, this display is the first chance in twenty years to see a remarkable collection of great photographic portraits by legendary photographer Bill Brandt (1904 - 1983). This display complements the major exhibition being mounted by the Victoria and Albert Museum - Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective (24 March -25 July 2004).

Bill Brandt Works from the 1940s and Harper's Bazaar". William Holman Gallery . Retrieved 24 June 2020. In this charismatic portrait of one of Britain's premier figurative painters, Francis Bacon stands, visible from the waist-up, at the bottom-left quarter of the image. His brow furrowed, Bacon looks downward, past the camera to the left. Behind him, an expansive grassy park is visible, dotted with autumnal trees. The twilight sky is cloudy and moody, and a tall, illuminated streetlight stands behind Bacon, just to the left of a footpath visible on the right edge of the photo.When you have done everything inside you, you cannot carry on unless you repeat yourself, and that’s not very interesting. Bill Brandt In 1933 Brandt moved to London and began documenting all levels of British society. This kind of documentary was uncommon at that time. Brandt published two books showcasing this work, The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938). He was a regular contributor to magazines such as Lilliput, Picture Post, and Harper's Bazaar. He documented the Underground bomb shelters of London during The Blitz in 1940, commissioned by the Ministry of Information. [2] Brandt took a total of 39 photos between the 4th and 12th of November before he had to stop due to catching the flu. [4] The photos were taken with a Rolleiflex camera. [4] Prints of the catalogue numbers 1 to 92 were made under the photographer’s supervision especially for the exhibition. The following vintage prints date from the time when the photographs were taken.

Although he never met Brandt, the novelist Lawrence Durrell attempted to persuade the leading poetry publishers, Faber & Faber, to publish Brandt’s landscapes. In 1950 Cassell commissioned Brandt to complete the series, which was published the following year with an introduction by John Hayward. Brandt greatly admired Edward Weston: the deep shadows and simplified, rhythmic forms of Brandt’s landscapes may owe something to the Californian master. The extreme social contrast during those years before the war was, visually, very inspiring for me. I started by photographing in London, the West End, the suburbs, the slums. Bill Brandt Perspective of Nudes. Preface by Lawrence Durrell, introduction by Chapman Mortimer. London: The Bodley Head/New York: Amphoto, 1961. Art historian. Author of many important studies on painting. Produced popular series on television, Civilization. In 1984, Bill Brandt was posthumously inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. [5] Blue plaque, 4 Airlie GardensBrandt greatly admired the work of fellow photographer and close friend Brassaï. In fact, Brandt’s second book, A Night in London (1938) was based on Brassaï’s Paris de Nuit (1933). Elizabeth Bowen, one of Brandt’s favourite writers, wrote in her story 'Mysterious Kôr': 'Full moon drenched the city and searched it; there was not a niche left to stand in. The effect was remorseless: London looked like the moon's capital – shallow, cratered, extinct…And the moon did more: it exonerated and beautified'. While Brandt didn’t want to be pinned down to weekly assignments, he did produce quite a bit of work for Lilliput and Picture Posr and, later, Harper’s Bazaar. In fact, all his work in portraiture was commissioned by commercial magazines. He took these assignments seriously, wanting the photographs to be more than snapshots that only showed a likeness at a given moment. His images of Britain’s cultural, artistic and literary figures were meant to last.

For] whatever the reason, the poetic trend of photography, which had already excited me in my early Paris days, began to fascinate me again. it seemed to me that there were wide fields still unexplored. I began to photograph nudes, portraits, and landscapes. Bill Brandt Bill Brandt was born in Hamburg, Germany to a German mother and British father. His childhood was mostly spent in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. What did it mean to enclose a nude body in a room furnished in the style of a hundred years before? Victorianism meant the repression of the body; nudity in England typically existed ‘behind closed doors’, unlike the free-spirited outdoor nudes by continental photographers. The English tradition belonged to the dark rather than the light, with its images of women cloistered or restrained. Artist renowned for the high quality of his figure drawing and his adventurous sense of composition. Brandt’s photographs of the nude are a significant part of his output from the 1940s onwards; he combined composition and technique to create psychologically haunting and formally inventive studies. Works such as Nude, Campden Hill, London 1957 (Tate P14999), Nude, Campden Hill, London, c.1956 1956 (Tate P15000), Nude, London, 1958 1958 (Tate P15001), Nude, Belgravia, London, 1953 1953 (Tate P15004), Nude, Campden Hill, London, 1955 1955 (Tate P15007), Nude, St. John’s Wood, London, 1955 1955 (Tate P14997) and Nude, London, 1950, March 1950 (Tate P15008) were shot not in studios but in rooms of Brandt’s choosing, so that he could go beyond the basic elements of form and light. In Bill Brandt: A Life, Paul Delany explained:

Bill Brandt’s Negative Beginnings

Brandt focused on nudes for over three decades and considers it the climax of his creative photography and the most satisfying of his work. I photographed pubs, common lodging houses at night, theatres, Turkish baths, prisons and people in their bedrooms. London has changed so much that some of these pictures now have a period charm almost of another century.' Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you. In the 1920s he went off to Paris to study with Man Ray. Years later, Brandt credited the surrealist photographer with broadening his skills. More importantly, Ray inspired in him a new excitement about photography and the world. Man Ray appreciated young Brandt’s darkroom expertisem but at the time didn’t think much of his photography. He would later reassess his opinion and credit Brandt with infusing English photography with elements of surrealism and the avant-garde. His post-war photography, in particular his nude series, was influenced by the film, Citizen Kane and the deep focus technique used by cinematographer Gregg Toland.

Art critic Megan Williams suggests that Brandt's celebrity portraits had brought his oeuvre full circle. She wrote, "Despite being taken in an altogether different stage of his diverse photography career, Brandt's portrait of Bacon bears parallels with his earlier photojournalism - it is compelling, curious and still, filled with a sense of cloudy unease". One might also observe that the fact so many icons of twentieth century European modernism were willing to sit (some of them for his more esoteric extreme-close shot series of famous eyes) for Brandt - among them Henry Moore, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Louise Nevelson, Alberto Giacometti - was itself an endorsement of the reverence reserved for Brandt amongst his peers. Brandt’s work has influenced many photographers including Robert Frank, Sir Don McCullin, David Bailey and Roger Mayne. Artist. From the 1960s has developed precisely patterned works which achieve retinal effect characteristic of Op Art.

I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations. And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment. But … no amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph… It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. Bill Brandt Manipulating the Negative He used his family ties to document the wealthy alongside the poor. Many of these images were staged, with family and friends acting out the scenes he wished to create. Brandt’s work was published in magazines domestically and abroad including Lilliput, Picture Post and Harper’s Bazaar. Brandt's second book, A Night in London, was published in London and Paris in 1938. It was based on Paris de Nuit (1936) by Brassaï, whom Brandt greatly admired. The book tells the story of a London night, moving between different social classes and making use – as with The English at Home – of Brandt's family and friends. Night photography was a new genre of the period, opened up by the newly developed flashbulb (the 'Vacublitz' was manufactured in Britain from 1930). Brandt generally preferred to use portable tungsten lamps called photo-floods. He claimed to have enough cable to run the length of Salisbury Cathedral. James Bone introduced Brandt's book and described the new, electric city: 'Floodlit attics and towers, oiled roadways shining like enamel under the street lights and headlights, the bright lacquer and shining metals of motorcars, illuminated signs…' Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera. Photographs 1923–1983. Published in connection with the exhibition in Philadelphia. Introductions by Mark Haworth-Booth, essay by David Mellor. New York: Aperture, 1985.