Bill Brandt 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983 Photographer

Bill Brandt

Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, meglio noto come Bill Brandt (Amburgo, 2 maggio 1904 – Londra, 20 dicembre 1983), è stato un fotografo britannico.
Bill Brandt è il più illustre dei fotografi inglesi del Novecento, anche se tedesco di nascita, poi naturalizzato inglese. La sua produzione è stata multiforme e si è confrontato con generi come il reportage, il ritratto ed il paesaggio, oltre al nudo per il quale è divenuto famoso.

Biografia

Nacque da genitori benestanti: il padre discendeva da una famiglia inglese, la madre, tedesca, aveva origini russe. Trascorse l’infanzia a Schleswig-Holstein. Ancora ragazzo si spostò in Svizzera dove si ammalò di tubercolosi e venne ricoverato nel sanatorio a Davos, un luogo che vide scrittori e personaggi celebri trascorrervi lunghi periodi, come Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Mann ed altri, tutti per motivi di salute.
Nel 1927 si trasferì a Vienna. Non ne conosciamo il motivo, forse per raggiungere uno dei suoi tre fratelli, Rolf, dove lavorava come grafico. Grazie al fratello conobbe la dottoressa Eugenie Schwarzwald (1872-1940), molto nota come pedagoga che aprì un famoso collegio per ragazze nel quale invitò ad insegnare artisti come Oskar Kokoschka, musicisti come Arnold Schönberg, architetti come Adolf Loos, scrittori come Elias Canetti, Robert Musil, Bertolt Brecht, tanto per citarne alcuni. Fu lei che spinse il giovane Brandt a dedicarsi alla fotografia trovandogli un impiego presso lo studio di Greta Kolliner, ritrattista ed amica
Conobbe Ezra Pound che lo aiuterà a diventare assistente di Man Ray a Parigi, dove rimarrà tre mesi e, sebbene non arricchisse il suo bagaglio tecnico, ne ricevette un forte impulso creativo e dove verrà in contatto con la poetica surrealista, lasciandosi influenzare, come scriverà lui stesso nel saggio del volume fotografico Camera in London (1948), da Eugène Atget e dalle pellicole di Luis Buñuel e Salvador Dalì, e dai loro film Un chien andalou e L'âge d'or. Di questa corrente artistica, Brandt si appassionerà soprattutto all’ispirazione psicoanalitica e metafisica, e a quella anti-borghese e più squisitamente marxista per la sua spinta verso la giustizia sociale, ma più d’ogni altra cosa il suo orizzonte sarà quello della totale libertà d’espressione creativa. Per questo egli non considererà se stesso propriamente un fotografo, bensì un artista.
Nel 1931, per la prima volta, giunse in Inghilterra, dove poi si stabilirà definitivamente. Nonostante studiasse molto la lingua, non riuscirà a nascondere l'accento tedesco. A 29 anni, nel 1933, cambiò il suo nome in Bill e rinnegò il suo passato tedesco. In tale decisione potrebbe avere influito la svolta autoritaria e dittatoriale del nazismo.
Fortemente interessato al sociale, nel 1935 pubblicò il volume fotografico The English at Home, che avrà per l'autore una grande importanza per la sua carriera, sebbene l'editore lo dovette ritirare per le critiche, in quanto mostrava troppo esplicitamente la disparità delle classi sociali.
Nel 1938 pubblicò contemporaneamente in Inghilterra e in Francia il libro A night in London, salutato come un grande successo, come fosse la versione inglese del volume Paris by Night di Brassai. A sua disposizione ebbe i mezzi tecnici, nuovi per l’epoca, come il flash, che usò spesso in combinazione alla luce ambiente - la cui sperimentazione, anche se risaliva ad un secolo prima, trovò la sua migliore applicazione proprio in quegli anni, quando cioè si riuscì a superare i lampi al magnesio - e la Rolleiflex, una reflex biottica che egli scelse perché alla maneggevolezza univa un formato adatto ai tagli in stampa e all’accurato lavoro di camera oscura cui Brandt si dedicava personalmente.
Brandt diventò fotoreporter e giornalista, pubblicando spesso le sue ricerche sociali su importanti riviste britanniche come Lilliput, Picture Post e Weekly illustrated. Le sue fotografie verranno pubblicate anche su Harper's Bazaar. Il suo impegno sociale fu costante ed apprezzato: allo scoppio della II Guerra Mondiale, per conto del Ministero dell’Informazione britannico, egli documentò la condizione dei londinesi durante i blackout e all’interno dei rifugi approntati per far fronte ai raid aerei dei nazisti.
Nel 1941, come conseguenza alle incursioni aeree naziste su obiettivi di carattere storico e artistico, venne costituito il National Buildings Record con il preciso scopo di raccogliere un’accurata documentazione delle opere architettoniche passibili d’essere distrutte o danneggiate, in vista di un restauro o di una ricostruzione futuri: Brandt fu in pratica assunto per documentare fotograficamente chiese e cattedrali ed alcuni dei luoghi più colpiti come Bath.
Nel corso degli anni ’40 sperimentò anche altri settori della fotografia: il ritratto ad artisti e intellettuali e il paesaggio, per il quale, in quegli anni, scattò una intensa serie di vedute cariche di echi letterari, come le dense atmosfere “romantiche” che richiamano i romanzi e le poesie delle Sorelle Brontë e di Thomas Hardy, che usciranno sulla rivista Lilliput e nel volume Literary Britain nel 1951.
Nel 1944 acquistò una Kodak di seconda mano, equipaggiata con un grandangolo, utilizzata precedentemente dalla polizia per fotografare rilievi investigativi, gli permetteva, come lui stesso amava dire, di vedere il modo attraverso gli occhi di un topo, di un pesce o di una mosca. Iniziò con questa macchina, che negli anni '60 sostituì con una Hasselblad, la sua avventura di fotografo di nudi. Corpi allungati e distorti dall'uso di obiettivi grandangolari, ripresi in ambientazioni naturali come le spiagge della Normandia, poi raccolte nel volume Perspective of Nudes, pubblicato nel 1961 a Londra e New York, considerate il suo capolavoro. Quasi contemporaneamente pubblicò l'antologia fotografica Shadow of Light.
A partire dal 1961 ebbe numerosi riconoscimenti ed iniziò ad esporre in spazi prestigiosi: nel 1969, ad esempio, espose nella prima retrospettiva al MOMA di New York, promossa e organizzata da Edward Steichen. Nel 1978 venne nominato “Royal Designer for Industry” dalla Royal Society of Arts e, l’anno dopo, venne insignito dalla Royal Photographic Society con la Silver Progress Medal.
Le sue fotografie entrarono a far parte d’importanti collezioni, come quelle del Victoria and Albert Museum, del MOMA, del George Eastman House, della Bibliothèque nationale de France, che possiede il fondo più vasto delle sue stampe.
Affetto da tempo dal diabete, la sua salute peggiorò e, a causa di un glaucoma, anche la vista si abbassò impedendogli di dedicarsi alla fotografia e alla stampa delle proprie opere. Bill Brandt morì nel 1983. Ebbe tre mogli da nessuna delle quali ha avuto figli. Le sue ceneri vennero sparse a Holland Park, dove amava recarsi a passeggiare.

Nude Abstract, London, 1957

Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt; 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983),¹⁴ was a British photographer and photojournalist. Although born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British society for such magazine as Lilliput and Picture Post, later his distorted nudes, portraits of famous artists and landscapes. He is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the 20th century.

Career and life

Born in Hamburg, Germany, son of a British father and German mother, Brandt grew up during World War I, during which his father, who had lived in Germany since the age of five, was interned for six months by the Germans as a British citizen.^:21 Brandt later disowned his German heritage and would claim he was born in South London. 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 by psychoanalysis. He was, in any case, pronounced cured and was taken under the wing of socialite Eugenie Schwarzwald. When Ezra Pound visited the Schwarzwald residence, Brandt made his portrait. In appreciation, Pound allegedly offered Brandt an introduction to Man Ray, whose Paris studio and darkroom Brandt would access 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 II, Brandt concentrated on many subjects – 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 his best 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.
Brandt died in London in 1983.

Exhibition

• 2004: Bill Brandt: A Centenary Retrospective, 24 March – 25 July 2004, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. "A selection of rare and famous prints from the Brandt archive".
• 2013: Shadow and Light, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Curated by Sarah Hermanson Meister.
• 2013: Bill Brandt, Early Prints from the Collection of the Family @Edwynn Houk, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. "A selection of rare and famous prints from the Brandt archive".

Recognition

In 2010, an English Heritage blue plaque for Bill Brandt was erected in London at 4 Airlie Gardens, Kensington, W8.

Bibliography

• Delany, Paul: Bill Brandt: A Life, Stanford University Press 2004
• Brandt, Bill. Camera in London. London: Focal Press, 1948.
• Brandt, Bill. The English at Home. New York: C. Scribner's; London: B. T. Batsford, 1936. Introduction by Raymond Mortimer.
• Brandt, Bill. Literary Britain. London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1951. Introduction by John Hayward.
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt: Perspective of Nudes. London: The Bodley Head, 1961; New York: Amphoto, 1961.
• Brandt, Bill. Perspectives sur le Nu. Paris: Editions Prisma, 1961.
• Brandt, Bill. Ombres d'une Ile. Paris: Editions Le Belier Prisma, 1966.
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt: Early Photographs, 1930-1942. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1975.
• Brandt, Bill. Shadow of Light. London: Bodley Head, 1966; New York: Viking Press, 1966; New York: Da Capo, 1977; London: Gordon Fraser, 1977.
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt: Nudes 1945-1980 The Gordon Fraser, London and Bedford 1980 Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1980.
• Brandt, Bill. London in the Thirties. London: G. Fraser, 1983; New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.
• Brandt, Bill. Portraits: Photographs by Bill Brandt. London: G. Fraser, 1982; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.
• Brandt, Bill. Nudes: Bill Brandt. Bulfinch Press, January 1980
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt. London: Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., 1976
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt: Photographs 1928-1983. Thames and Hudson, 1993
• Brandt, Bill. Bill Brandt. Milan: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, 1982.
• Brandt, Bill. Brandt: The Photographs of Bill Brandt. Thames and Hudson, 1999
• Brandt, Bill. Brandt: Nudes Thames and Hudson, 2012
• Brandt, Bill. Shadow and Light, Sarah Hermanson Meister, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (March 31, 2013)
• Burgin, Victor (ed.). Thinking Photography. Macmillan Press Ltd. 1982
• Goldberg, Vicki. Photography in Print; Writings from 1816 to the Present. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981
• Haworth-Booth, Mark. Contemporary British Photography: Into the 1990s. Aperture Foundation, Inc., January 1989
• Iverson, Margaret (ed.). Psychoanalysis. Art History 17(3), September 1994
• Jay, Bill. Occam's Razor: Outside-in Viewing Contemporary Photography. Germany: Nazraeli Press, 1994
• Jeffrey, Ian. Photography: Concise History. Thames and Hudson, World of Art Series, 1981, reprinted 1989
• Kee, Robert. The Picture Post Album. London, 1993
• Kelly, Jain (ed.). Nude:Theory. Lustrum Press, Inc. 1979.
• Mellor, David. Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera Photographs 1923-1983. New York:Aperture, 1985
• Read, John. Portrait of an Artist: Henry Moore. London, 1979.
• Time Life Books Editors. The Print Time Life International, 1972.
• Wells, Liz (ed.). Photography, A Critical Introduction. Routledge, 1997.
• Warburton, Nigel (ed.). Bill Brandt; Selected texts and bibliography. Oxford: Clio Press, 1993; Macmillan Library Reference, 1994.
• Hopkinson, Tom. Poetry: Bill Brandt - Photographer. Lilliput 11(2):130-41

“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.” – Bill Brandt
“It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual’s temperament and environment.” – Bill Brandt
“Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field.” – Bill Brandt
“The good photographer will produce a competent picture every time whatever his subject. But only when his subject makes and immediate and direct appeal to his own interests will he produce a work of distinction.” – Bill Brandt
“It is essential for the photographer to know the effect of his lenses. The lens is his eye, and it makes or ruins his pictures. A feeling for composition is a great asset. I think it is very much a matter of instinct. It can perhaps be developed, but I doubt if it can be learned. To achieve his best work, the young photographer must discover what really excites him visually. He must discover his own world.” – Bill Brandt
“A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.” – Bill Brandt
“If there is any method in the way I take pictures, I believe it lies in this. See the subject first. Do not try to force it to be a picture of this, that or the other thing. Stand apart from it. Then something will happen. The subject will reveal itself.” – Bill Brandt
“By temperament I am not unduly excitable and certainly not trigger-happy. I think twice before I shoot and very often do not shoot at all. By professional standards I do not waste a lot of film; but by the standards of many of my colleagues I probably miss quite a few of my opportunities. Still, the things I am after are not in a hurry as a rule.” – Bill Brandt
“But I did not always know just what it was I wanted to photograph. I believe it is important for a photographer to discover this, for unless he finds what it is that excites him, what it is that calls forth at once an emotional response, he is unlikely to achieve his best work.” – Bill Brandt
“Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.” – Bill Brandt

“I am 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.” – Bill Brandt

“Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others.” – Bill Brandt
“And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.” – Bill Brandt
“I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.” – Bill Brandt
“No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.” – Bill Brandt
“Photography is not a sport. It has no rules.” – Bill Brandt
“Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.” – Bill Brandt

  Ezra Pound, 1928

 SP27-Early morning on the river, 1930s

 SP20-Eton Sprawls, 1933 June

 Eva and Lyena, 1934

SP30-After the celebration, 1934

 SP22-Domino players North London, 1930-5

 SP32-Hatter's window, Bond St London 1930-5 

SP25-Flowerseller Swiss Cottage 1931-5

 SP19-Epsom Derby, 1935

 RMS Queen Elizabeth c1936

 Street scene, Peckham, 1936

 Sunday evening, 1936

  Coal Searcher Returning Home, Jarrow, 1936-1937

 SP28-Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937

SP23-Housewife, Bethnal Green 1937

 Piccadilly at night, 1938

 Policeman in a Bermondsey Alley, 1938

East End girl dancing the Lambeth Walk, 1939

 SP31-Parlourmaid and Under Parlourmaid ready to serve dinner, 1939

SP26-In a Mayfair drawing room, 1939

 A Lyons Nippy (Miss Hibbott), 1939

 Dylan Thomas, 1941

At Charley Brown's pub, Limehouse, 1945

 Nude Campden Hill, London 1947

 Nude, Micheldever, 1948

 Nude, Campden Hill, London, 1949

 Nude, Belgravia, London, 1951

Nude Belgravia, London, 1952

Nude, Hampstead, London, 1952

 Nude London, 1952

 Nude London, 1953

 Nude East Sussex, 1953

 Nude Abstract, 1954

 Nude London, January 1956

Nude Abstract, London, 1957

 Nude Taxo d'Aval, France 1957

 Nude East Sussex, 1957

 Nude East Sussex, 1957

 

Nude Taxo d'Aval, 1957

 Nude East Sussex, 1958

Nude London, 1958

Nude Abstract, 1958

 

Nude Campden Hill, London 1958

Nude, Baie des Anges France 1959, October

 Nude East Sussex, 1959

 Nude Baie des Anges, 1959

 Nude Baie des Anges, 1959

 Nude Abstract, 1960s

 Nude East Sussex, 1960

 SP33-Francis Bacon, Primrose Hill 1963

 Nude East Sussex, 1977

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Bill Brandt (3 May 1904 -- 20 December 1983) was an influential British photographer and photojournalist ...