Bill Brandt
Bombed Bath, Parish Church of St James's, 1942
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
23.8 x 19.4 cms
9 5/16 x 7 10/16 ins
Series: 4. Britain at War
10928
Further images
Provenance
The Estate of Bill BrandtEdwynn Houk Gallery, New York
Exhibitions
Bill Brandt. A Retrospective Exhibition, The Royal Photographic Society National Centre of Photography, 1981, (cat.64)Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2014. (This print exhibited)
Bill Brandt / Henry Moore, The Hepworth Wakefield (7 February - 31 May 2020). The exhibition will tour to Yale Center for British Art, USA (June 25-September 13, 2020) and Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich (November 22, 2020-February 28, 2021). (This print)
Literature
Bill Brandt, 'Bath: What the Germans Mean by a Baedeker Raid', (Picture Post, 4 July 1942)Mark Haworth-Booth (intro.) and David Mellor (essay), Bill Brandt. Behind the Camera. Photographs 1928-1983, Aperture/Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1985 (illustrated p.91)
Martina Droth and Paul Messier (eds.), Bill Brandt / Henry Moore, Yale University Press, 2020 (This print)
BILL BRANDT stamp verso This photograph was published in 1942 in Picture Post as part of a double page spread of Brandt's images of wartime devastation entitled 'Bath: What the...
BILL BRANDT stamp verso
This photograph was published in 1942 in Picture Post as part of a double page spread of Brandt's images of wartime devastation entitled 'Bath: What the Germans Mean by a Baedeker Raid', (Picture Post, 4 July 1942).
The bombing raids on England by the Germans in April and May 1942 were referred to on both sides as "Baedeker raids". The term derived from a comment by Baron Gustav Braun von Stumm, a spokesman for the German Foreign Office, who is reported to have said on 24 April 1942 (following the first attack), "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide", a reference to the popular travel guides.
On 25/26 and 26/27 April, the German bomber force attacked the English town of Bath, causing widespread damage and around 400 casualties. Bill Brandt visited in the aftermath of these raids and a selection of his photographs, including this one, was published in Picture Post on July 4th 1942.
Brandt's selection of an incongrous, unusual or distorted focal object for these scenes of rubble and devastation also reveal a surrealist eye, in which he finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Copyright The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich. 2018
British Photography / The Hyman Collection
This photograph was published in 1942 in Picture Post as part of a double page spread of Brandt's images of wartime devastation entitled 'Bath: What the Germans Mean by a Baedeker Raid', (Picture Post, 4 July 1942).
The bombing raids on England by the Germans in April and May 1942 were referred to on both sides as "Baedeker raids". The term derived from a comment by Baron Gustav Braun von Stumm, a spokesman for the German Foreign Office, who is reported to have said on 24 April 1942 (following the first attack), "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide", a reference to the popular travel guides.
On 25/26 and 26/27 April, the German bomber force attacked the English town of Bath, causing widespread damage and around 400 casualties. Bill Brandt visited in the aftermath of these raids and a selection of his photographs, including this one, was published in Picture Post on July 4th 1942.
Brandt's selection of an incongrous, unusual or distorted focal object for these scenes of rubble and devastation also reveal a surrealist eye, in which he finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Copyright The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich. 2018
British Photography / The Hyman Collection