About

Noted for the breadth of his accomplishments across multiple styles, from surrealist nudes and distorted landscapes to images of British society, Bill Brandt is widely regarded as one of the greatest British photographers of the 20th century. After assisting in Man Ray’s Paris studio in 1930, Brandt moved to London and undertook an ambitious project documenting the extremes of British life, juxtaposing high society portraits with the industrial landscapes and working-class communities of northern England. This documentary work, unusual at the time for its candid exploration of social divides, was published in The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938).

From 1939 through the war, Bill Brandt worked as a photojournalist, producing haunting images of wartime London before shifting his focus to a series of dynamic nudes that explored lens distortion and unconventional perspectives. He was also a distinguished portraitist, photographing key figures of the English artistic scene, including Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, and Alec Guinness.

His major monographs from the postwar period include Literary Britain (1951), Perspective of Nudes (1961), and Shadow of Light (1966). Today, Brandt’s photographs are held in major museum collections worldwide, and in 2004, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London mounted a significant retrospective of his work.