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Brandt, Bill

British, 1904-1983

BiographyBill Brandt is best known for his incisive photographs of British people, landscape, culture, and history. Brandt was especially interested in the division of class and labor and the ways in which individuals live up to socially prescribed roles. During World War I, he photographed London during blackouts, Blitz shelters, and architecture, putting himself in risk near bombing sites. He later produced his first book, The English at Home, published in 1936, which was a sweeping look at daily British life. He also photographed extensively during World War II, and many of these images were included in the monograph Camera in London (1948).

Brandt depicted his subjects through a variety of methods, including documentary, staged imagery, and darkroom compositing. He was influenced by Surrealism, which can be seen especially in his nude images he made after the wars, which were photographed in domestic spaces and then outdoors, instead of the sterile studio settings of the time.

Bill Brandt was born in Germany and immigrated to the UK in 1933. His work has been published as several monographs, including A Night in London (1938), Perspective of Nudes (1961), and Shadow of Light, a retrospective (1966). Brandt worked for magazines such as Paris Magazine, Picture Post, Lilliput, and Harper's Bazaar (UK and US), photographing fashion, literary and public figures, and other portraits. He received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London, the same city where the Bill Brandt Archive is held. Posthumously, his work was the center of solo exhibitions at Victoria and Alberta Museum in London, England (2004) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2013).