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Nude

Photograph
1959 (photographed), 1976 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Black and white photograph by Bill Brandt of a hand, making a loose fist, curled over some pebbles. The horizion suggests a seascape beyond.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • Nude (popular title)
  • Baie des Anges, France 1959 (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Gelatin silver print
Brief description
Black and white photograph by Bill Brandt, 'Nude', gelatin silver print, 1959, printed later
Physical description
Black and white photograph by Bill Brandt of a hand, making a loose fist, curled over some pebbles. The horizion suggests a seascape beyond.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 34cm
  • Image width: 29.2cm
Credit line
Copyright Bill Brandt Archive
Object history
Bill Brandt was perhaps Britain's greatest 20th century photographer. He took up photography when living in Vienna in the 1920s, and spent three months assisting the surrealist Man Ray in his studio in Paris (1929-30) before settling in London in 1931. During the 1930s and early 40s Brandt contributed reportage to various illustrated magazines, including Picture Post and Lilliput, and published several books, starting with The English at Home in 1936. He developed an expressive style, combining social observation with a subtle streak of strangeness. During the 1940s he also worked as a portraitist and landscape photographer. From 1945 Brandt began to concentrate on the female nude, using a wide-angle lens to produce images of surreal distortion. His work has been highly influential on subsequent generations of British photographers.
Subjects depicted
Places depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Brandt, Bill with commentary by Norah Wilson. Camera in London. London: The Focal Press, 1948.
  • Brandt, Bill with an introduction by Raymond Mortimer. The English at Home. London: BT Batsford, Ltd, 1936.
  • Brandt, Bill with introductions by Cyril Connolly and Mark Haworth-Booth. Shadow of Light, revised and extended edition. London: Gordon Fraser, 1977.
  • Brandt, Bill. London in the Thirties. London: Gordon Fraser, 1983.
  • Brandt, Bill. Literary Britain/ 2nd revised and expanded edition with introduction by John Hayward, foreword by Sir Roy Strong, afterward by Mark Haworth-Booth and Tom Hopkinson. London: Victoria and Albert Museum in association with Hurtwood Press, 1984.
  • Brandt, Bill with introduction by Michael Hiley. Nudes 1945-1980. London: Gordon Fraser, 1980, pl. 46.
  • Brandt, Bill with preface by Lawrence Durrell, introduction by Chapman Mortimer. Perspective of Nudes. London: Bodley Head, 1961, pl. 75.
  • Brandt, Bill with introduction by James Bone. A Night in London: Story of a London Night in Sixty-Four Photographs. London: Country Life; Londres de Nuit, Paris: Arts et Metiers Graphiques; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938.
  • Jay, Bill and Nigel Warburton. Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999.
  • Warburton, Nigel, ed. Bill Brandt: Selected texts and bibliography. Oxford: Clio Press, 1993.
  • Jeffrey, Ian. Bill Brandt: Photographs, 1928-1983. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993.
  • Haworth-Booth, Mark introduction and essay by David Mellor. Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera. Photographs, 1928-1983. Oxford: Phaidon, 1985.
  • Delany, Paul. Bill Brandt: A Life. London: Jonathan Cape, 2004.
Collection
Accession number
PH.166-1978

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Record createdJuly 30, 2003
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