BILL BRANDT

British-German, 1904-1983

Bill Brandt was born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt in 1906 in Hamburg, Germany to parents of Russian descent. After contracting tuberculosis as a teenager, he spent six years recovering in a facility in Davos, Switzerland, where his interest in photography began. Following his release, he headed to Vienna where he found work as a studio assistant for photographer Greta Kolliner. It was at this studio that in 1928 he photographed the American poet, Ezra Pound who was so impressed with the photograph, that he encouraged Brandt to head to Paris to work for Man Ray. In 1929 Brandt relocated to Paris to work at Man Rays’s studio, also finding commercial work for Paris Magazine. Although his time in Paris was short, the city and its surrealist musings had a profound effect on Brandt, which he would later reference in his post-war work. He was also influenced by the straight documentary style of Eugéne Atget.

During the 1930s, Brandt and his partner, Eva Boros traveled on numerous occasions to Hungary and Spain and in 1932 married in Barcelona. In 1934, the Parisian surrealist magazine, Minotaure, published one of Brandt’s early images. By this time Brandt had adopted England as his home, shedding his German identity, eventually claiming to have been British-born. In 1936 he would publish his first book, The English at Home and in 1938 he released A Night in London, his second book based on the 1936 book, Paris de Nuit by Brassaï, whom Brandt greatly admired. In these works, he examined the socio-economic contrasts among the British with a distinct and innovative photojournalistic style. In 1937, Lilliput, a magazine dedicated to fine art photography published a number of photo essays by Brandt, who by this time had become a highly sought-after photographer.

During World War II Brandt became a staff photographer for the British Home Office, photographing the ruined buildings and crowded, improvised underground air raid shelters of London. After the end of the war he turned away from journalism to produce photographic studies of landscapes and natural forms, followed by his ground-breaking female nudes, which were marked by his use of stark contrasting tones and wide-angle lens distortion.

After a career spanning more than five decades, Brandt died in 1983. In 2004, the centennial of his birth, his work was shown in a massive retrospective, Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Widely regarded as the most important British photographers, his home in Kensington displays an English Heritage Blue Plaque, a rare achievement for a photographer.