background preloader

Bill Brandt

Facebook Twitter

Bill Brandt. Text from Michael Frizot, A New History of Photography Contrary to legend, Bill Brandt was born not in London, but in Hamburg, Germany, on May 3, 1904. The asthmatic son of a banking family, he came to his own country for the first time in 1931, having lived in a sanatorium in Davos and in Vienna and Paris, where he was Man Ray's assistant. His ambition was to become an independent professional photographer.

His first book, The English at Home, appeared in 1936. Based on the portrayal of types and stereotypes, this was a kind of manifesto of British society, through which Brandt undertook to show the British their real faces. The complete opposite of the ideal motherland of his dreams, he discovered a divided people, a stratified society with a well-defined caste system, in the grip of economic crisis. In 1937 Bill Brandt traveled north, where he undertook at his own expense a photoreportage on the economic and social situation in the great cities of the Midlands and Tyneside. Bill Brandt. Bill Brandt part4. Bill Brandt part3. Bill Brandt part2. Bill Brandt part1. Brandt, Bill - Exploring 20th Century London.

Bill Brandt is one of the most celebrated British photographers of the 20th century, best known for his surrealist-influenced nudes and his portrayal of Londoners during the Blitz. Brandt was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a wealthy banking family with British and Russian roots. At the age of 16, he contracted tuberculosis and spent the next six years recovering in a Swiss sanatorium. Aged 22, Brandt left for Vienna, joining his elder brother Rolf. On deciding to become a photographer, he found work in a portrait studio. It was probably Pound who introduced Brandt to the eminent painter and photographer Man Ray. Brandt settled in Belsize Park with his new wife Eva in 1934. Turning to more political subjects, Brandt explored the industrial midlands and the north to produce striking, memorable photographs of the hardships of life there.

In 1938, Brandt published his second book, A Night in London. Brandt met a broad spectrum of people in the arts world, in both London and Europe. Bill Brandt Online. Bill Brandt. Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983[1]), was a German-British photographer and photojournalist. Although born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his high-contrast images of British society, his distorted nudes and landscapes, and is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the 20th century.[2] Career and life[edit] Born in Hamburg, Germany, son of a British father and German mother, Brandt grew up during World War I, during which his father, who had lived in Germany since the age of five, was interned for six months by the Germans as a British citizen.[3] Brandt later disowned his German heritage and would claim he was born in South London.[4] Shortly after the war, he contracted tuberculosis and spent much of his youth in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland.[5] He traveled to Vienna to undertake a course of treatment for tuberculosis by psychoanalysis.

Brandt died in London in 1983. Bill Brandt Home Page. BILL BRANDT: “Don’t Smile – You Look Stupid” (2004. Dylan Thomas, 1941 By Sebastian Smee, March 22, 2004 Taking celebrity portraits involves making a crucial decision. You can embrace the celebrity machine, relishing your own role in the business of image-creation; this was the approach of Cecil Beaton and he handled the task more deftly than almost anyone, as the crowds at the National Portrait Gallery for the current Beaton exhibition (2004) know. Alternatively, you can try to prick the celebrity bubble. This might mean taking the warts-and-all route – revelling in the reality behind the glitz of fame. This last was the way Bill Brandt tackled the job of photographing the famous. Both men were born in 1904. Whenever someone tried to take a photograph of him, Brandt would never smile. Like his photographs of British landscapes and twilit streets, Brandt’s portraits have a grainy quality that stands in absolute contrast to the dominant style of bright, vivid celebrity photographs today.

Francis Bacon, 1963 Surely both.