Bill Brandt

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Disambiguation: you may be looking for Willy Brandt for the former Chancellor of West Germany

Bill Brandt (May 3, 1904 – December 20, 1983) was an influential British photographer and photojournalist known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes.

[edit] Career and life

Born in Hamburg, Germany, son of a British father and German mother, Brandt grew up during World War I. Shortly after the war, he contracted tuberculosis and spent much of his youth in a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland. He traveled to Vienna to undertake a course of treatment for TB by psychoanalysis. He was in any case pronounced cured and began an apprenticeship in a portrait studio in the city. When Ezra Pound visited a mutual friend, Eugenie Schwarzwald, Brandt made his portrait. In appreciation, Pound offered Brandt an introduction to Man Ray, in whose Paris studio, Brandt would assist in 1930.

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.

During World War 2, Brandt focused every kind of subject - as can be seen in his "Camera in London" (1948) but excelled in portraiture and landscape. To mark the arrival of peace in 1945 he began a celebrated series of nudes. His major books from the post-war period are Literary Britain (1951), and Perspective of Nudes (1961), followed by a compilation of the best of all areas of his work, "Shadow of Light" (1966). Brandt became Britain's most influential and internationally admired photographer of the 20th century. Many of his works have important social commentary but also poetic resonance. His landscapes and nudes are dynamic, intense and powerful, often using wide-angle lenses and distortion.

[edit] External links

• Bill Brandt at Artcyclopedia – list of image galleries and museum exhibits.
• The Bill Brandt Archive – biography and images.