Silver Print Gallery

Baie des Anges 1959
BBSO0287B<br>In 1938 there were 1.3 million people employed in domestic service in England & Wales. No separate statistics existed for parlourmaids, but together with the house-parlourmaids, they are said to have numbered about 20,000.<br>Mrs. Pratt, pictured here on the left, was parlourmaid to Bill Brandt's aunt. A formidable woman, Brandt first met Pratt in Kensington in March 1929, and was immediately struck by it being a partcularly fortunate meeting, at least in respect of his photography.
London | Parlourmaids ready to serve dinner, (1933)
Brandt was a regular visitor to Hampstead where he had many friends. This picture was taken with his acquisition of an old wooden box camera with a pinhole lens in a market shop in Soho. He experimented with the visual perspectives that this gave, both indoors and on the beaches of England and France.<br>Although we take this kind of visual perspective for granted now, at the time it was not common. Brandt was influenced to some extent by the film 'Citizen Kane' by Orson Welles, which showed both ceiling and floor of a film set for the first time
Hampstead 1952
BatchPic-0756-BBP0168B
Rene Magritte 1963
When Brandt first moved to England in the early 1930s, he frequented race courses of Epsom and Ascot. He found these to be fertile ground for scenes of social contrast and division as well as statuesque set pieces such as this.<br>The Epsom Derby is by far the most famous and prestigious flat race run anywhere in the world. The Derby is regarded as the ultimate test and attracts only the best horses.
Epsom | Royal Hunt Cup Day (1936)
Didn't you feel like this once? Brandt was a master of being able to construct a scene to look as if he had just stumbled across it. Nobody took pictures on-the-fly in light like this in the early 1930s. <br>The figure is most probably his brother Rolf, who appears in several other photographs of the period.<br>This is a good example of the pea souper type of fog that descended on London during those days, caused byl arge quantities of smoke and sulphur fumes. One of the worst pea souper's occurred in 1952.
London | After the Celebration, (1931-5)
East End Girl Dancing the Lambeth Walk 1938
BBSO0402FS This picture was originally called 'Top Floor' but was later changed by Brandt to the above title.<br>This is one of Brandt's most emphatically erotic photographs. The original printing having a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling, but cropped from all future prints. The photograph is partly based on an image first seen in Minotaure, a surrealist magazine of the early 1930s.
London | Soho Bedroom, (1938)
Covering the rich gamut of British life from toffs to tradesmen.
London | Housewife, Bethnal Green, (1937)
London 1952