Bill Brandt: Portraits

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Although there was little direct teaching from Man Ray, Brandt was able to absorb the new developments in photography and various art movements in Paris. Bill Brandt met Tom Hopkinson, then assistant editor of Weekly Illustrated, in 1936. Hopkinson, later knighted for services to journalism, became Brandt's editor at Lilliput and Picture Post. He described Brandt in a profile published in Lilliput in 1942 as having 'a voice as loud as a moth and the gentlest manner to be found outside a nunnery'. Brandt would propose picture-stories for both magazines and often sequence his photo-essays, sometimes also contributing text. For his part, Brandt stated, "A good nude photograph can be erotic, but certainly not sentimental or pornographic". He used a wide-angle lens to capture more of the small space, and usually took no more than twenty-four exposures. Brandt placed his nudes of this period amongst his best works, even though to begin with "nobody wanted [to publish] them". Eventually, however, his nudes came to be admired for their simple beauty. As he explained, "[I was] not very interested in extraordinary angles. They can be effective on certain occasions, but I do not feel the necessity for them in my own work. Indeed, I feel the simplest approach can often be most effective. A subject placed squarely in the centre of the frame, if attention is not distracted from it by fussy surroundings, has a simple dignity which makes it all the more impressive".

Brandt, Bill with introductions by Cyril Connolly and Mark Haworth-Booth. Shadow of Light, revised and extended edition. London: Gordon Fraser, 1977, pl.101. Brandt, who emerged as the outstanding chronicler in pictures of the English working classes in the inter wars years, made his first visit to northern England in the summer of 1937 where he encountered first-hand the financial hardship of communities crippled by 80 percent unemployment following the closure of local mills and collieries. In one of his most famous, and most poignant, photographs of the series, Coal-searcher Going Home to Jarrow, Brandt documented the act of "coal-searching" whereby his subject, pictured by Brandt pushing his heavily laden bicycle up a steep path, had foraged on local slag heaps for small lumps of coal with which he might use to heat his home. Images such as this, which is rendered in a sharp wintry high contrast of light and dark tones, were complemented with more claustrophobic scenes of cramped interior living conditions. This image was not published, however, until 1947 when Picture Post presented it as a visual contrast to the age of austerity and rationing that had followed in Britain in the immediate war years.Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Curated by John-Paul Kernot. [9] [10] I photographed pubs, common lodging houses at night, theatres, Turkish baths, prisons and people in their bedrooms. London has changed so much that some of these pictures now have a period charm almost of another century.'

I always take portraits in my sitter’s own surroundings. I concentrate very much on the picture as a whole and leave the sitter rather to himself. I hardly talk and barely look at him.' Brandt’s work has influenced many photographers including Robert Frank, Sir Don McCullin, David Bailey and Roger Mayne. Bill Brandt and Cecil Beaton (1904-80) were contemporaries and photographed each other. They had a number of sitters in common, and this display of Brandt's portraits coincides with the Gallery's major exhibition Cecil Beaton: Portraits (5 February - 31 May 2004). Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera. Photographs 1923–1983. Published in connection with the exhibition in Philadelphia. Introductions by Mark Haworth-Booth, essay by David Mellor. New York: Aperture, 1985.He decided to pursue a career in photojournalism, a profession still in its infancy. However, Brandt was a photojournalist with a difference. For under the tutelage of Man Ray, Brandt had developed his own moody, surreal style. He used his family ties to document the wealthy alongside the poor. Many of these images were staged, with family and friends acting out the scenes he wished to create. Warburton, Nigel (ed.). Bill Brandt; Selected texts and bibliography. Oxford: Clio, 1993; Macmillan Library Reference, 1994. Although Brandt’s images can appear candid and spontaneous, he did not capture people unaware. He worked closely with those he photographed, directing and lighting them to cast ‘the spell that charges the commonplace with beauty’. He sometimes waited for hours to capture effects at specific times of day – as in Woman Swimming – and some of his most mysterious scenes were taken at night. Brandt developed his own film and printed his own photographs, giving him further opportunities to rebalance light and dark, and change the composition through cropping and enlarging. He even used ink and pencil to alter prints, for example introducing plumes of smoke onto Hail, Hell & Halifax. The series of Brandt’s nudes shown in the exhibition include some of his best-known and most evocative works, which further explore his interest in altered perspectives, surreal effects and abstract compositions. Brandt’s portraiture developed in the 1940s, often commissioned by publications such as Lilliput, Picture Post and Harper’s Bazaar, and frequently depicted leading artists, writers and figures from the worlds of film and theatre. Pablo Picasso at ‘La Californie’, 1955 1955 (Tate P15009) is among Brandt’s best-known portraits. One of a series of portraits taken at Picasso’s villa ‘La Californie’ on the Côte d’Azur in the south of France, it was commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar. Georges Braque on the Beach at Varengeville, Normandy, 1955 1955 (Tate P15018) depicts the artist at the age of seventy-three. Braque is one of several sitters who Brandt photographed twice, with up to several decades between. Brandt had first shot Braque at the age of fifty-four in 1936. When Brandt collected his portraits into a book in 1982, he included seven people whom he had photographed at different stages of their lives, including Braque. Louise Nevelson’s Eye, 1963 1963 (Tate P14998) is a close-up image of the eye of American artist Louise Nevelson (1899–1988). Brandt made ten similar photographs in the early 1960s; each is the closely cropped eye of a notable artist. While some appear to have been made during the same session as a published portrait, none are thought to be enlargements from a known work.