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Artworks
Bill Brandt
St Paul's Cathedral in the Moonlight, 1939Vintage Gelatin Silver Print24 1/5 x 19 3/5 ins 61.5 x 49.8 cmsSeries: 4. Britain at War10938Provenance
The Estate of Bill Brandt
Edwynn Houk Gallery, New YorkExhibitions
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)
London Nights, Museum of London, London, 11 May - 11 November 2018 (This print)
Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 6 March - 12 August 2013 (another print)
Bill Brandt. Early Prints from the Collection of the Family, Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, 2013 (This print)
Literature
Martina Droth and Paul Messier (eds.), Bill Brandt / Henry Moore, Yale University Press, 2020 (This print)
Sarah Hermanson Meister, Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013), p.89 (illustrated full page p.89)
Paul Delaney, Bill Brandt: A Life, 2004 (illustrated in mirror image full page p.108)
Bill Jay and Nigel Warburton, Brandt: The Photography of Bill Brandt, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1999 (mirror image illustrated p.141)
Mark Haworth-Booth (intro.) and David Mellor (essay), Bill Brandt. Behind the Camera. Photographs 1928-1983, Aperture/Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1985 (illustrated reversed p.33)
Bill Brandt, Shadow of Light, 1977 (illustrated p.49)
Bill Brandt. Shadow of Light. A Collection of Photographs from 1931 to the Present, with an introduction by Cyril Connolly and notes by Marjorie Beckett, 1966 (illustrated full page p.60)
Bill Brandt, Camera in London, Focal Press, 1948 (illustrated full page p.88, entitled "The church which has seen it all")
Titled in ink on verso. Photographer's 58 Hillfield Court stamp verso. One of Bill Brandt's most celebrated photographs. Other vintage prints of this work are in the collection of MoMA,...Titled in ink on verso. Photographer's 58 Hillfield Court stamp verso.
One of Bill Brandt's most celebrated photographs. Other vintage prints of this work are in the collection of MoMA, New York and The Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Many of Brandt's night views of London during the Blitz were made during blackouts imposed in an attempt to make the city less vulnerable to German bombers. Brandt later wrote: "The darkened town, lit only by moonlight, looked more beautiful than before or since. It was fascinating to walk through the deserted streets and to photograph houses which I knew well, and which no longer looked three-dimensional, but flat like painted stage scenery."
Reflecting on photographs such as this, Brandt also subsequently wrote:
"The London of the last war was a different place from the London of 1938. The glamorous make-up of the world's largest city faded with the lights. Under the soft light of the moon the blacked-out town had a new beauty. The houses looked flat like painted scenery and the bombed ruins made strangely shaped silhouettes. Through the gaps new vistas were opened and for the first time the Londoner caught the full view of St Paul's Cathedral"
Copyright The Bill Brandt Archive, London / Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York / Zürich. 2018
British Photography / The Hyman Collection
