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Bill Brandt

This picture, “Parlour maids ready to serve dinner, 1938”, was published in Picture Post, the illustrated weekly for which Bill Brandt worked from its foundation until the late 40’s. Brandt, one of the great artists in the medium and a strong influence on photographers in the 40’s and 50’s, studied in Man Ray’s studio in Paris in the late 20’s, travelled in Spain and Hungary and eventually settled in Britain. Like the many photojournalists of the late 1920’s, whose example he followed, he preferred the pre-arranged shot to candid pictures. From 1938 he worked regularly both for Picture Post and for the monthly Liliput. As a romantic landscapist in the 40’s, then as a portraitist and photographer of nudes during the 50’s, Brandt had no equal.
Brandt’s images, in their often compelling intensity, suggest the ambiguous nature of what constitutes a portrait. Indeed, his visual style recalls the obvious fact that in the formative years of the development of photography, oil painting, like literature, was increasingly questioning the very basis of mimetic and representational images.
Robin Bell has been printing Bill Brandt silver gelatin limited editions for the Bill Brandt Archive, and we are grateful to John-Paul Kernot for allowing us to exhibit a selection of Bill Brandt’s work. Robin Bell has remained faithful to Brandt’s individual vision and acknowledges that Brandt’s negatives are challenging, and every item is a labour of love.

Recent Exhibitions

Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, July 2005
Fahey Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, June 2005
Royal Library, Copenhagen, October 2004
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Spring 2004
Pentagram Gallery, London, Spring 2004
Focus Gallery, London, November 2003
Naples Museum of Art, Florida, December 2004
Paris Photo, Paris, November 2003