Bill Brandt

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Bill Brandt

by Ida Kar
modern bromide print, August 1968
Given by Martin Couzins, 2009
Photographs Collection
NPG x133291

Sitterback to top

  • Bill Brandt (1904-1983), Photographer. Sitter in 34 portraits, Artist or producer of 120 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Kar, with her assistant John Couzins, photographed Brandt in his flat in Airlie Gardens, Kensington.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 138 Read entry

    Brandt was born in Hamburg and learned photography in a Viennese studio in the 1920s, before spending three months in 1930 as an assistant to Man Ray at the height of the surrealist movement. Brandt settled with his wife Eva in London in 1934 and published his first photographic impressions of the country as The English at Home (1936), followed by A Night in London (1938). Brandt's commissions for Lilliput magazine from 1941 established him as a portraitist, and he became a regular contributor to Harper's Bazaar in the 1950s and 1960s. A series of portraits of writers was published as Literary Britain in 1951. In 1944 Brandt began to photograph nudes with a large wide-angled police camera. The photographs, showing the influence of Matisse and Henry Moore, were published in Perspective of Nudes (1961), which was followed by a career survey, Shadow of Light, in 1966. Kar, with her assistant John Couzins, photographed Brandt in his flat in Airlie Gardens, Kensington (in some of the portraits Brandt's second wife, Marjorie Becket, can just be seen). The year after this photograph was taken, Brandt was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1969) and the Hayward Gallery, London (1970), which brought Brandt to the attention of a new generation. Brandt shared Kar's approach in that he said, 'I always take portraits in my sitter's own surroundings.'

Placesback to top

Events of 1968back to top

Current affairs

Enoch Powell delivers his 'Rivers of Blood' speech in Birmingham in opposition to anti-discrimination legislation and immigration from the commonwealth. The speech is usually regarded as racist and blamed for stirring up racial prejudice. Powell was sacked from the shadow cabinet as a result, but received considerable public approval at the time for his views.
Fay Sislin becomes England first black woman police officer.

Art and science

Beaton Portraits is the first ever photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Under the directorship of Roy Strong, the exhibition introduced a new, theatrical approach to display, and was so popular that the national press reported on the length of queues to get in and it had to be extended twice.

International

Civil unrest escalates in France as student protesters, joined by striking workers, clash with the police. The events came to represent the conflict between the new, liberalised, left-wing generation and the forces of authority and conservatism. French protests were mirrored by others abroad including the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, where political liberalisation was achieved for a few months before the country was invaded by the Soviet Union.

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