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Focus on Photography: Two Exhibitions
October 12 - December 9 2007 University Gallery, Old College,
University of Delaware Opening Preview:
Thursday, October 11, 5-7 pm
Bill Brandt: Shadow of Light
| Click on the image for larger version. |
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Nude, London,1952 |
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Coal Searcher Returning Home, Jarrow, 1936-1937 |
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Dylan Thomas, 1941 |
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Parlourmaid and underparlourmaid ready to serve dinner, 1936 |
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Street scene, Peckham, 1936 |
A master of modern British photography, Bill Brandt (1904-1983) is known for his high contrast photographs of British society and abstracted images of nudes. Influenced by French Surrealist photography, the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, and the writings of Graham Greene and E. M. Forster, Brandt redefined the medium of photography in a career that spanned half a century.
Bill Brandt was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1904. The asthmatic son of a British banking family, he left school in Germany at the age of 16 because of poor health. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, Brandt spent his early life in Swiss and Austrian sanatoriums. Given his illness and artistic interests, Brandt’s family decided that photography might be a suitable career for their son. In 1930 they paid for him to apprentice in the Parisian studio of Surrealist photographer Man Ray, whose introduction came through Ezra Pound, a family friend. Here, the young photographer was exposed to some of the most innovative photographers of the day. Aside from the experiments of Man Ray, Brandt also became familiar with the haunting compositions of André Kertész, Parisian night scenes of Brassaï and street photographs of Eugène Atget. All were to have a profound influence on Brandt’s work over the next few decades.
In 1931, Brandt moved to England where he embarked upon a career as an independent photographer, working for magazines such as Weekly Illustrated, Picture Post and the racy Lilliput. His first major series of photographs, The English at Home (1936), captured the extremes of a class-conscious British society in the grips of economic crisis. In 1937, Brandt traveled to the industrial north to document the social inequalities in the great cities and mining districts. His photographs of coal miners remain among the most poignant images of the English working-class.
In 1938, Brandt produced another series entitled A Night in London. Loosely based on the work of Brassaï, Brandt sought to create a unified picture story of London night life. Photographed as a dusk-to- dawn narrative, Brandt explored the uncertain, mysterious lighting effects of night as he photographed London’s back alleys, pubs, theatres and hotels with resident workers, clients, lovers, policemen and criminals. In several of the photographs, Brandt posed family and friends to evoke narrative in a compositional manner similar to 1930s film stills.
During the latter part of his career, Brandt devoted himself to portraiture, landscapes and the female nude. It was his revolutionary treatment of the last category which brought him notoriety. His first nudes were photographed with an old wooden plate camera formerly used by police, lacking a shutter and equipped with a wide-angle lens. Their dramatic poses are enhanced by the unusual viewpoints of the architectural backgrounds, imbuing them with a strange, menacing atmosphere. The unnatural perspectives, which shocked people at the time, are based on the enlargement of volumes and close-up treatment of details. At the same time, Brandt was taking portraits of artists, intellectuals and writers he admired. Going beyond external appearances in these images, he tried to decode the enigmatic mysteries concealed behind a face, as in his intriguing portraits of Dylan Thomas (1941) and Francis Bacon (1963).
This exhibition, comprising 67 vintage photographs, is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.
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| Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Alfred Stieglitz in An American Place, ca. 1935, gelatin silver print, 10 x 8-1/16 in., Gift of William I. and Christine Homer, 2006 |
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| Eva Watson-Schutze (1867-1935), The Rose, 1905, halftone on tissue, 12 x 8-3/8 in., Gift of William I. and Christine Homer, 2006 |
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| Larry Fink (b. 1941), Studio 54, New York City, May 1977, gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches, Gift of Mark Greenberg and Tami Morachnick, 2006 |
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| Josef Sudek (1896-1976), Landscape with Water, n.d., gelatin silver print, 6-1/2 x 8-3/4 in., Gift of Mark Greenberg and Tami Morachnick, 2006 |
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| Leon Levinstein (1913-1988), Untitled (Man in Suit, Woman in Fur Coat), ca. 1954 (1980), 20 x 26 in., Gift of Mark Greenberg and Tami Morachnick, 2006 |
Recent Gifts of Photography to University Museums
Major gifts of photography were donated to the University of Delaware in 2006, augmenting its collections of 19th- and 20th-century photographs. Twenty-four important works were generously donated by photography collectors Tami Morachnick and Mark Greenberg of Scarsdale, N.Y. Four works by Czechoslovakian photographer Josef Sudek (1896-1976) were given as part of this major gift, as well as 17 photographs by New York street photographer Leon Levinstein (1913-1988) and three works by contemporary social documentarian Larry Fink (b. 1941).
Other gifts to the Collection include those donated by photography historian and former University of Delaware Prof. William Inness Homer and his wife, Christine. Seventeen works in various photographic media by artists associated with the Photo- Secession and the Stieglitz Circle were added to the Collection, including images by Joseph T. Keiley (1869-1914), Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Clarence H. White (1871-1925) and Eva Watson-Schütze (1867-1935), as well as works representing other approaches to the medium. Among the latter category are photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and Dr. Charles Mitchell (active 1890-1905).
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