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Brandt:
The Photography of Bill Brandt
Published by Harry N. Abrams, 1999
PURCHASE: Amazon.com
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Bill Brandt,
one of the most prolific 20th-century photographers, is beautifully
represented by this volume, Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt.
It contains nearly 400 of his black & white photographs ranging from
his famous, starkly disturbing portraits of the denizens of either end of
the social ladder to his late, poetic landscapes and cool, studied,
abstract nudes. In between are several series that contain singular images
of great familiarity, such as his portrait of painter Francis Bacon in an
eerie, lamp-lit landscape, or the one of two housemaids in starched white
caps standing at attention behind an upper-crust dining-room table.
Brandt's passionate interest in the shocking juxtaposition of the very
rich and the very poor brought him a wide audience as well as accusations
of being a Socialist propagandist. During the Great Depression, Brandt
traveled to the north of England and made some of the most devastating
pictures of his career, exposing the extreme poverty--and dignity--of the
area's coal miners.
Author Bill
Jay has divided this book into eight sections: A European Apprentice,
Observing the English, Courting the Surreal, Journeys North, The Dark City
(Brandt made haunting pictures of wartime London during the blackouts), A
Return to Poetry, Portraying the Artist, and the Perfection of Form. Jay's
introduction is warm and perceptive--and laced with juicy anecdotes. Nigel
Warburton, another Brandt expert, contributes an illustrated time-line of
Brandt's many professional assignments, under the rubric "The
Career." This carefully edited book demonstrates why Brandt has
always enjoyed high stature among artists, for it is packed with
individual masterpieces. But even if it were not, it would be powerful
simply for the breadth of Brandt's accomplishments.
--written
by Peggy Moorman
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