Lee Gallery: Bill Brandt vintage gelatin silver prints, photographs for sale, photography dealer.

Bill Brandt, English, 1904-1983

Bill Brandt was born in London in 1904. While studying architecture in Germany and Switzerland he began working in portrait studios where he fell in love with photography. He later moved to Paris and studied under Man Ray between 1929-1930. While Brandt admired photographers such as Edward Weston, Cartier-Bresson and Eugene Atget, he became greatly influenced by surrealism. In 1931 he returned to England where he became a freelance photographer and began documenting the English way of life. His images were featured in publications including Harper?s Bazaar, News Chronicle and Picture Post. With the onset of World War II, Brandt became a staff photographer for the British Home Office where he reported on the hardships of the English people during the German bombing raids. By the end of the war, Brandt had become disillusioned with documentary photography and yearned to create the type of images he made in his earlier years in Paris. He began to photograph nudes, landscapes and portraits. Brandt is best known for his high contrast images with their stark black-and-white tones, and for his use of a wide-angle lens which distorted the subject matter and gave the image a surreal quality. His work can be found in most museums that collect photographs.