Bill Brandt
London, Air Raid Shelters, East End Underground Station, November 12th, 1940, 1940
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
25.1 x 19.5 cms
9 14/16 x 7 10/16 ins
Series: 4. Britain at War
10145
Further images
Provenance
Private CollectionExhibitions
Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 6 March - 12 August 2013.Literature
Bill Brandt, Shadow of Light, 1977 (illustrated p.56)Sarah Hermanson Meister, Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013), p. 92. (illustrated full page, a variant, tighter cropping)
Mutliple stamps on the reverse including Brandt's own 'PHOTO BILL BRANDT' stamp as well as official government stamps: 'Ministry of Information. British Official Photograph no D1578', 'Ministry of Information. Photograph...
Mutliple stamps on the reverse including Brandt's own "PHOTO BILL BRANDT" stamp as well as official government stamps: "Ministry of Information. British Official Photograph no D1578", "Ministry of Information. Photograph Division", "Passed for Publication. 4 February 1940. Press and Censorship Division". Also with an official label: "D1578 London Air Raid Shelters. East End Underground Station, November 12th, 1940"
One of Bill Brandt's most celebrated images from his famous War-time series depicting the people of London sheltering in Underground stations during the Blitz. These photographs may be compared with the contemporary pastels of Henry Moore who also portrayed these subterranean shelters.
A smaller print of this photograph, that appears to have been cropped, is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Whereas the full image in the Hyman Collection makes it explicit that a mother is sleeping protectively beside her children, in the smaller MOMA version the cropping excludes some of the background, and most significantly severely crops the foreground, so that the form of the mother is no longer readable and instead the focus is on the children.
Copyright The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich. 2018
British Photography / The Hyman Collection
One of Bill Brandt's most celebrated images from his famous War-time series depicting the people of London sheltering in Underground stations during the Blitz. These photographs may be compared with the contemporary pastels of Henry Moore who also portrayed these subterranean shelters.
A smaller print of this photograph, that appears to have been cropped, is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Whereas the full image in the Hyman Collection makes it explicit that a mother is sleeping protectively beside her children, in the smaller MOMA version the cropping excludes some of the background, and most significantly severely crops the foreground, so that the form of the mother is no longer readable and instead the focus is on the children.
Copyright The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich. 2018
British Photography / The Hyman Collection