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April 11, 2003|Volume 31, Number 25



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Among the works by British photographer Bill Brandt on view in the new exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art is "Nude, East Sussex."



Exhibit traces career of experimental
British photographer

Works by Bill Brandt, who is credited with having created more memorable images than any other British photographer of the 20th century, will be on view in a new exhibition opening on Wednesday, April 16, at the Yale Center for British Art.

Titled "Bill Brandt: A Retrospective," the exhibition traces the photographer's 50-year career. It includes 155 vintage gelatin silver prints documenting the range of styles Brandt experimented with over the years -- from his photojournalistic images of London life to his poetic and surrealistic works.

Brandt (1904-1983) once said, "Photography is a very new medium and everything is allowed and everything should be tried." He began his career working for groundbreaking photographer Man Ray before going to London to freelance for Weekly Illustrated. His photographs of the city's rich and poor pushed the then-accepted boundaries between documentary photography and journalism.

During the Blitz of World War II, Brandt photographed London by night and documented the crowds taking refuge in the Underground to escape the bombing. After the war, his work shifted focus. According to the artist, he turned away from his documentary style because "[my] main theme of the past few years had disappeared; England was no longer a country of marked social contrast."

Inspired by the formal and psychological experiments of the surrealists and by the spirit of Romanticism, Brandt turned to the poetic world of nudes, portraits and landscapes. His innovative nude studies gained acclaim for defining new territory in showing photography's kinship with sculpture and modern abstraction.

"He excelled in all fields -- social scenes, surrealism, night photography, wartime documentary, landscape portraiture and the nude," says Mark Hayworth-Booth, curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Brandt regarded darkroom work as crucial and liked to complete his images by retouching and enhancing them with pen and pencil. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to study the subtle handwork in the vintage Brandt prints on display.

"Bill Brandt: A Retrospective," curated by John-Paul Kernot, was organized by the Bill Brandt Archive and is circulated by Curatorial Assistance, Los Angeles; the in-house curator is Scott Wilcox, curator of prints and drawings at the Yale museum. The show will run through July 20 at the British Art Center, which is the exhibition's last U.S. venue before returning to England.

To mark the opening of the show, the British Art Center will host a talk on Brandt's career by author Ian Jeffrey at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15. The event is free and open to the public.

The Yale Center for British Art, located at 1080 Chapel St., is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. The museum is accessible to individuals using wheelchairs. For further information, call the center at (203) 432-2800 or visit the website at www.yale.edu/ycba.


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Campus Notes


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