Nude, 1951

Born in Hamburg in 1903, Brandt assisted Man Ray in 1929 - 1930 and was otherwise self taught. He moved to London in 1931 where he began a career as a freelance photojournalist, working for Lilliput, Picture Post and Weekly Illustrated. His enigmatic and highly personal style set him apart from his contemporaries. In 1943 Brandt saw Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. The film's cinematography, in particular the use of wide-angle shooting had a profound influence most obviously with his series of nudes. Michael Hiley describes Brandt's nudes as "inhabiting a world which seems to lie parallel to our own, inaccessible and seen only fleetingly in visions. The interiors of the spacious rooms in which we first see them are like those entered in recurring dreams - bare and claustrophobic..."