Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt was the preeminent British photographer of the twentieth century, a founding father of photography’s modernist tradition whose half-century-long career defies neat categorization. This publication presents the photographer’s entire oeuvre, with special emphasis on his investigation of English life in the 1930s and his innovative late nudes. The Museum of Modern Art has been exhibiting and collecting Brandt’s photographs since the late 1940s, and has recently more than doubled its collection of vintage prints of his work, which forms the core of this selection. An essay by Sarah Hermanson Meister, Curator in the Department of Photography at MoMA, sets the artist’s life and work in the context of twentieth-century photographic history. With rich duotone illustrations that highlight the special characteristics of Brandt’s prints, this volume is an invaluable resource to students and scholars alike. Lee Ann Daffner, the Museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservator of Photographs, contributes an illustrated glossary of Brandt’s retouching techniques, enhancing the appreciation of Brandt’s printing processes. The book also includes a generously illustrated appendix of Brandt’s published photo-stories during the Second World War.

Bill Brandt (1904–1983) moved to London from Germany in 1934 and quickly began his investigation of British society, resulting in what would become his signature publications: The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938). He continued to photograph in London throughout World War II, contributing regularly to Picture Post and Harper’s Bazaar. His postwar career expanded to include portraits and landscapes, and the celebrated series of nudes that remain his crowning achievement. His other major books include Camera in London (1948), Literary Britain (1951) and Perspective of Nudes (1961). Brandt died in London in 1983.

Acknowledged as a master of twentieth-century photography and the greatest British photographer, Bill Brandt left an indelible mark on the medium during a career that spanned more than 50 years. Trained in Man Ray's Paris studio, Brandt returned to England and produced a body of work that ranged from portraits of upper-crust society to views of the poverty of the industrial north. During the Blitz of World War II Brandt created an epic picture of blacked-out London, with images of bomb-damaged landmarks and residents sheltering in underground subway stations. After the war, he began a series of nude studies using lens distortions and unusual points of view to interpret the female form in new ways. He also photographed the movers and shakers of the English art scene, from Alec Guinness to David Hockney, and, for a series called Literary Britain, he toured the country tracking down landscapes that had been influential to important British writers.
Mark Haworth-Booth, curator of photography at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, provides a contextual overview and information on Brandt's working methods and biography. David Mellor, professor of art history at the University of Sussex, offers cogent interpretations of the larger significance of Brandt's themes and preoccupations.

The year 2004 marks the centenary of the birth of Bill Brandt, one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century. Brandt Icons is published by the Bill Brandt Archive as its own centenary tribute to the work of a great eye. Containing 30 of Brandt's most famous images, it is a generous introduction to his multi-genre work: photojournalism, the nude, landscape, the urban scene, and the portrait. Whether Brandt was taking pictures of London streets during the blackout or sleepers in the Underground during the Blitz; coal miners or high society in pre-war Britain; moody, pared-down landscapes or elegant, abstracted nudes, he always imbued his photographs with strangeness and mystery, with a Surrealist touch, with rich connotations. Brandt Icons pulls the most memorable of his images together for a rich overview of an even richer life's work.