BILL BRANDT
British
Often characterized as England’s most British pho-
tographer, Bill Brandt was in fact born in Ham-
burg, Germany. He moved to London in 1931, at
the age of 27. The fact of his true country of origin
and Brandt’s own habit of presenting himself as
British born, however, cannot obscure his role in
the history of British photography. During his long
career he produced important work in the genres of
social documentary, landscape, the nude, and por-
trait photography. Brandt committed to England
and English society in a profound way, document-
ing its imposing class structure and the physical
landscape as well as making portraits of many of
the luminaries of the British arts and letters. His
many photography books were noteworthy for the
ways in which he contrasted wealth and poverty as
well as how he depicted reality mixed with a surrea-
listic edge.
While he pursued numerous subjects throughout
his career, Brandt tended to follow one genre for
an extended period before moving on to the next.
He first became known as a social documentary
photographer in the 1930s. This is when he first
published his evocative scenes of both the strug-
gling working class and their privileged counter-
parts in Edwardian society. Brandt’s documentary
work coincided with the rise of the picture press in
England and consequently, his early photographic
series became synonymous with the extremes of
British life between the wars. This work was striking
for its dark grittiness, a mood that reflected both
the political atmosphere and England’s economic
depression at the time.
After World War II Brandt turned away from
reportage. During the second half of his career his
photographs were characterized more and more by
mystery, experimentation, and a brooding quality
that reinvigorated some of photography’s oldest and
most common genres; landscape, portraiture, and
the nude. By the late 1970s Brandt had long been
recognized as one of the masters of modern photo-
graphy. While his work from earlier decades is in-
cluded in major collections of photography around
the world, his last body of work consisting of color
photographs of still life’s and three-dimensional
box-like constructions was little seen or understood.
While Brandt explored many genres and processes
throughout his life, it is the work of the post-WWII
period for which he is best known.
Beginning in the 1930s and continuing through
the 1960s Brandt created a distinct photographic
language based on dramatic composition, stark
lighting, and shadows. The empathy for his working
class subjects often found in his social documentary
work was slowly replaced by a haunting surrealism
and a probing focus on the individual in both his
nudes and his portraits of English writers and
artists. In addition to having his work published in
periodicals likePicture Post,Lilliput, and in both
the British and American editions of Harper’s
Bazaar, Brandt also published his work in photo-
graphy books. These publications, which includeA
Night in London(1938),Camera in London(1948),
andLiterary Britain(1951), and finallyPerspective
of Nudes(1961), are among the most influential
photo books of the modern period. Brandt’s pub-
lished works, often focusing on the social interac-
tions of upper and lower classes, reveal powerful
narratives, created through the deliberate sequen-
cing and placement of the images throughout each
book. Brandt was often cited as an early influence of
Robert Frank, whose own book,The Americans
(1955) became a turning point in American social
documentary photography.
Brandt’s early childhood was spent in Europe
and his early career as a photographer was shaped
in large part by his time in Paris, where he was
surrounded by the artistic avant-garde, including
Man Ray, Brassaı ̈, Euge`ne Atget, and the work of
the Surrealists. Moving permanently to Britain in
1931, the spirit of that country became an impor-
tant theme.
During World War II Brandt began a series
depicting London at night, a series of images that
perfectly captured both the eerie beauty of the city
and the anxiety that gripped its inhabitants. While
the city was under siege, the city’s first defense was to
extinguish all streetlights, creating an environment
that had not existed since the introduction of the gas
lamps of the previous century. ‘‘The glamorous
make-up of the world’s largest city faded with the
lights,’’ Brandt wrote inCamera In London(1948).BRANDT, BILL