Bill Brandt
Liverpool Street

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Artist Bill Brandt (British, born Germany, 1904–1983)British, born Germany, 1904–1983

CultureBritish

Titles

Liverpool Street

Date1940

Place depictedLondon, England

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 8 3/4 × 7 5/8 in. (22.2 × 19.4 cm)
Sheet: 8 3/4 × 7 5/8 in. (22.2 × 19.4 cm)
Mount: 9 × 7 5/8 in. (22.9 × 19.4 cm)

Credit LineGift of Lawrence D. Hite

Object number2014.977

Non exposé

Explore Further

Department

Photography

Special Collections

World War II in Photographs

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionDuring the Blitz, when German bombers pounded London night after night, Brandt photographed both the eerily empty, blacked-out city aboveground and its inhabitants sleeping in makeshift subterranean shelters—the latter for the British Ministry of Information. Two months into the nightly air raids, from November 4 to 12, 1940, Brandt documented life in the underground Tube stations, wine cellars, shop basements, and crypts where as many as 200,000 people sought protection. More than simple reportage, Brandt’s photographs portrayed the suffocating atmosphere and complex jumble of bodies in a disorienting manner.
ProvenanceThe artist, d. 1983; Estate of the artist; [Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York]; purchased by Lawrence D. Hite, New York, 1987; given to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History"Photographs by Bill Brandt: A Sense of Wonder," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Cameron Gallery, February 2-April 27, 2008.

"WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 11 November, 2012 - 3 February, 2013.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in ink on verso mount: Shadow of Light. / Black-out nights of the / London blitz. // 57 / (artist stamp) / Crowded improvised air-raid shelter / in a Liverpool Street tube tunnel.

Inscribed in pencil on verso mount:HITE (circled)

Inscribed with ink marker on verso mount, top center and left side: (word crossed out), 24 cm (top), 27.5 cm (left edge)

Stamped on verso mount, center: BILL BRANDT

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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