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Bill BrandtBritish, 1905-1983
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Nonartists often misunderstand the nature of artistic tradition, and imagine it to be something similar to a fortress, within which eternal verity is protected from the present. In fact it is something more useful and interesting, and less secure. It exists in the minds of artists, and consists of their collective memory of what has been accomplished so far. Its function is to mark the starting point for each day's work. Occasionally it is decided that tradition should also define the work's end result. At this point the tradition dies.
For purposes of approximate truth, it might be said that photographic tradition died in England sometime around 1905 --- coincidentally the year in which Bill Brandt was born. Brandt spent much of his youth on the Continent, and in the late twenties went to Paris to study with Man Ray. There he also discovered the photographs of Atget and the works of the French Surrealist film-makers. His own work already possessed a strongly surrealist character --- not the intellectually playful irrationalisme of his teacher Man Ray, but a mordant, poetic romanticism suggestive of de Chirico and Dore.
When Brandt returned to London in the thirties, England had forgotten its rich photographic past, and showed no signs of seeking a photographic present. In the forty years since, Brandt has worked virtually alone, with only intermittent contact with the main channels of contemporary photography. Such isolation can starve all but the most independent talents, but for these it can provide a sanctuary where radical visions can develop undisturbed. Brandt's work has been consistently separate from the photographic consensus of the moment: reflective when it should have been militant, romantic when it should have been skeptical, experimental and formal when it should have been factual.
In the years following his return to England, Brandt concentrated on photographing his countrymen, of all classes and conditions. These pictures are moving and strange; they express both sympathy and tranquil detachment, as though Brandt were photographing something that had existed long ago. Though unsparingly frank, his pictures seem to refer less to the moment described than to the issues of role, tenacity, courage, and survival.
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Atget Library
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Bill Brandt
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