Bill Brandt

(1904–83)

Anglo-German photographer, born in Hamburg. He worked in Man Ray's studio before moving to London in 1930. He made his name with photographs for the picture magazines Lilliput and Picture Post. His two books, The English at Home (1936) and London at Night (1938), emphasize a Britain still thoroughly class-ridden. During the Second World War he documented underground bomb shelters. His later work was more abstract and atmospheric, including nude figures made strange by stark contrast and extreme close-up. One of his most famous single images is of Francis Bacon walking, solitary as the artist's paintings of van Gogh, over a deserted heath with an incongruously isolated, bent lamppost.