Photographer, born in Hamburg, N Germany. He studied with Man Ray in Paris in 1929 and returned to London in 1931. Later in the 1930s he made a series of striking social records, contrasting the lives of the rich and the poor, and during World War 2 he worked for the ministry of information recording conditions in London in the Blitz. His greatest creative work was his treatment of the nude, in which his essays in pure form, as published in Perspective of Nudes (1961) and Shadows of Light (1966), approached the surreal.
Bill Brandt (May 3, 1904 – December 20, 1983) was an influential British photographer and photojournalist known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes.
Career and life
Born in Hamburg, Germany, son of a British father and German mother, Brandt grew up during World War I. When Ezra Pound visited a mutual friend, Eugenie Schwarzwald, Brandt made his portrait. In appreciation, Pound offered Brandt an introduction to Man Ray, in whose Paris studio, Brandt would assist in 1930.
In 1933 Brandt moved to London and began documenting all levels of British society. Brandt published two books showcasing this work, The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938).
During World War 2, Brandt focused every kind of subject - as can be seen in his "Camera in London" (1948) but excelled in portraiture and landscape. His major books from the post-war period are Literary Britain (1951), and Perspective of Nudes (1961), followed by a compilation of the best of all areas of his work, "Shadow of Light" (1966). Brandt became Britain's most influential and internationally admired photographer of the 20th century.
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