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Bill Brandt, one of the most prolific 20th-century photographers, is beautifully represented by this volume, which contains nearly 400 of his black-and-white photographs. These range 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. --Peggy Moorman
From Library Journal
In his foreword to this impressive gathering of Brandt's photographs, David Hockney offers the idea that Brandt "made pictures of the North of England because he regarded the image as the important thing, rather than the purity of execution." Indeed, some of these photographs are no more technically right than one might find in a family album from an aunt or uncle with camera skills. Instead, Brandt seemed to be satisfied with taking the best picture he could in real-life travel across an often bleak territory of people and places. There is a cool English light here, a luster of dampness on most surfaces, and the dirt and grime of work or urban neglect in the old places where Brandt worked best. An interesting section, "The Perfection of Form," demonstrates Brandt's experiments with nudes as pure forms. Jay (photography studies, Arizona State Univ.) and Warburton (philosophy, Open Univ.) supply interpretive essays. Beautifully designed and printed, this volume is subtle and quiet--an impressive retrospective of a photographer who clearly deserves such a formal tribute.
-David Bryant, New Canaan P.L., CT Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
