Bill Brandt
Liverpool Street

Liverpool Street

© Bill Brandt / Bill Brandt Archive Ltd.

Liverpool Street
Liverpool Street
ArtistBritish, 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
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Special Collections
Object Type
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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