Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt [Anglais] [Relié]

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

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.

"An artist and a poet of the highest order."

Bill Brandt (1904-1983) was one of the century's most important photographers-a man whose work ranged from starkly realistic images of industrial workers to surreal studies of the human body. This is the first comprehensive retrospective on this protean artist. Interpretive essays and 350 of Brandt's finest photographs, reproduced in stunning duotone, illuminate every phase of a long and varied career: his stint as an assistant to Man Ray; his early photojournalism, which shows the influence that Brandt and Brassa had on one another; his dark portraits of England's industrial north; the haunting images of London during the blitz; his evocative series of English literary landscapes; and Brandt's famous abstract nudes. This volume is sure to become the standard reference on a truly great photographer. 350 photographs in duotone, 320 pages, 911/2 x 1111/2" Advertising: Art magazines BILL JAY is professor of photography studies at Arizona State University. As the editor of a groundbreaking British photography journal he came into frequent contact with Bill Brandt, whom he came to admire as a photographer without equal. He is the author of 15 books on the history and criticism of photography. NIGEL WARBURTON is a lecturer in philosophy at England's Open Univer sity, specializing in the philosophy of aesthetics, on which he has published several books. He has also published numerous articles on photography and is editor of Bill Brandt in the World Photographers Reference Series.