Though the city may have lost its shimmering glitter,
the shadowy urban nights that he photographed had
a graphic allure similar to that of Brassaı ̈’s Paris.
Brassaı ̈and Andre ́Kerte ́sz were both early influ-
ences on the photographs in bothCamera in London
andA Night In London(1938). Work from the latter
bears a striking similarity to Brassaı ̈’sParis de Nuit
(1932). Another assignment during the war, com-
missioned by the Ministry of Information in 1940,
produced one of Brandt’s most memorable picture
stories;peoplehuddling inimprovised bombshelters
in locations throughout the city. At night Brandt
visited tube shelters, church crypts, and cellars and
photographed these overcrowded spaces with artifi-
cial light. The impact of the series owes virtually as
much to the strong contrast of light and dark as it
does to the difficult subject matter of displaced,
fearful families huddled in cold, uncomfortable
spaces. Seen together, Brandt’s photography during
thisperiodrecordstheextremes oflifeduringthewar
years while simultaneously displaying the innova-
tions in night photography.
The 1940s also saw Brandt turn to portrait com-
missions as another source of income. He published
portraits of poets, writers, painters, and film direc-
tors for the next 40 years. In 1941Lilliputmagazine
published a series of eight portraits that revealed his
distinctive approach to this traditional photo-
graphic genre. While his portraits captured single
subjects usually in their homes, Brandt’s vision
often turned typical sitting rooms and libraries
into strange environments. He avoided isolating
the sitter’s face or focusing on her or his expression.
Still he was able to consistently reveal the intensity
of the sitter’s character by the juxtaposition of sitter
and environment. Subjects such as the painter
Francis Bacon and the writer Martin Amis appear
lost in their private realities.
While his early documentary works expand the
notion of documentary photography as a tool for
social change, Brandt’s later work reveals his power-
ful formal inventions. As he branched out from re-
portage,Brandtbegantoexplorethetechnicalsideof
the medium and found darkroom work to be more
interesting than the act of pressing the shutter. Near
the end of World War II Brandt dedicated himself to
photographing the female nude. Inspired perhaps by
the distorted nudes created by Surrealist photogra-
phers via reflections in various materials, Brandt
experimented with distorting the female form, the
image he produced, however, taking on a disturbing,
psychological edge. Posed individually, either in
stark English townhouse interiors or on the rocky
British coastline, these nude studies stand in sharp
contrast to the elegant views of the British aristoc-
racy and the humble tableaux of grimy coal mines of
his earlier works. While seemingly grounded in the
reality of a figure in a naturalistic setting, these are
amongBrandt’s mostsurrealimages,andcanbesaid
to be the photographic equivalent of British artist
Henry Moore’s abstracted figure sculptures.
Brandt considered the nudes to be the major artis-
tic statement of his photographic career and he con-
tinued to focus on it for almost three decades. Unlike
virtually all other photographers who employed dis-
tortion techniques to highlight the sensual or erotic
in their nudes, Brandt seemed interested in avoiding
any hint of eroticism. Brandt later noted that the
Orson Wells’s filmCitizen Kanedeeply influenced
the look of these photographs, and it is clear that this
cinematic vision is further enhanced by Brandt’s use
ofawide-anglelenswithafixedfocusandnoshutter.
By using this antiquated equipment he was able to
produce images where the human form was wildly
distorted and viewed in unrealistically deep perspec-
tive. While depicting the female nude, even in dis-
torted forms was not new in visual art, Brandt’s
extreme formalism was striking and the results were
images in which the sexual availability of the sitter
was completely erased. In contrast to his earlier
work,wheretheviewerismadetofeellikeaninvisible
observer of the photographed scene, the women in
Brandt’s later work often look directly at the camera
meeting the viewer’s gaze.
Inthe1970sand1980s,followingthenudes,Brandt
began to explore entirely new processes. After work-
ing for nearly 50 years in traditional black and white
photography he began creating three-dimensional
collages using rocks and debris found on the beach,
and started photographing in color. This late work
was personal and experimental. Initially this work
seemed to have little apparent relation to his earlier
photographic interests, resembling garish, deserted
dreamscapes. This abstract work, however, drew
heavily on his lifelong interest in Surrealism and
points to the early influence of Man Ray’s work in
the 1920s. Although the collages and color photo-
graphs were exhibited in London in the mid 1970s
and again 10 years after Brandt’s death in 1992, they
were never fully embraced by either critics or the
public and are seldom included in retrospectives of
his work. Brandt’s stature as a giant of British and
indeedinternationalpostwarphotography,however,
is assured.LISAHenry
Seealso:Brassaı ̈; Documentary Photography; His-
tory of Photography: Interwar Years; History of
Photography: Postwar Era; Kerte ́sz, Andre ́; Man
Ray; Nude Photography; Portraiture; SurrealismBRANDT, BILL