Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt was born in Germany in 1904, suffered from tuberculosis shortly after the end of the First World War and moved to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland. He undertook a course of psychoanalysis in Vienna and met up with the socialite Eugene Schwarzwald who introduced him to Ezra Pound. Reputedly, it was Ezra Pound who then introduced him to Man Ray in 1930. Bill Brandt moved  from Paris to London in 1933. and began to document life in Britain. Two books were published with photographs from all levels of Britain’s class ridden society. ‘The English at Home’ (1936) and ‘A Night in London’ (1938) were enormously influential. He went on to document bomb shelters during the Blitz in 1940 and other aspects of life in London.

Brandt went on to produce some very memorable landscapes and portraits, but it is his early work in ‘The English at Home’ that is really intriguing. His work not only chronicled the life of different classes, but their activities and rituals. The really interesting feature of his photobook was that he thought of photos in pairs with the one influencing or complementing how one thought about the other. So we have a photo of a miner’s family with the mother anxiously looking out of the photo with the children close around her looking  somewhat grubby. This photograph is followed by another of a miner at work.  The photograph of the family is clearly orchestrated with the mother looking out of the picture. His photos making social comment were sometimes staged and it raises the question of their legitimacy when subjects are asked to dress up and look in particular way. 

Photographs of intimate social life such as fights amongst boys in Lambeth were of great significance to documentary photography in Britain. His moody dark landscape photos also continue to have a profound influence on landscape photographers. For example, ‘A snicket in Halifax’ (1937), and ‘Policeman in Bermondsey’ (1938) spring to mind. Later portraiture such as ‘Francis Bacon walking on Primrose Hill” (1963) continue to express a dark and moody atmosphere that is such a strong feature of his photography.