Tag: Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt/Henry Moore

A new book and exhibition plots the parallel and sometimes converging careers of two eminent British artists

6 February 2020

The Hyman Collection donates 125 photographs to Yale Center for British Art

London-based collectors Claire and James Hyman have donated 125 photographs to the Yale Center for British Art, gifting key works by leading figures in British photographic history – including Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Tony Ray-Jones, Martin Parr, Chris Killip and Anna Fox – to the 44-year-old institution in New Haven in the US. It’s a move that could be interpreted as a damning indictment of UK institutions’ commitment to collecting British photography – particularly as, the last time BJP caught up with James Hyman (our May 2015 issue), he said building such collections has been “left to private individuals, and it shouldn’t have been”. In the same interview Hyman also singled out Birmingham Library and its curator of photography collections Peter James for praise – yet in the intervening time, both the photography archive and James’ job have fallen victim to funding cuts. But Hyman says the donation should be viewed in a positive light as evidence of the growing interest in British photography abroad – an interest which may spark more commitment in the UK.

18 January 2018

World-class collector David King talks work, life, and left-wing history

It’s a spectacularly beautiful early morning in December and the traffic is rolling past indifferently on one of North London’s less than silent streets. I’m standing in front of a large red door, having come to visit David King and his world-famous collection documenting the extraordinary visual history of the Soviet Union. King has been assembling the collection for almost five decades and now it is in the process of being transferred to the archives of Tate Modern. The collection has always run in parallel to his work as a graphic designer, photographer and author – work, it is fair to say, that shows influence from the Bolshevik-era material he has discovered on his many visits to the former USSR, and which he has often drawn from in his books, posters, photographs and graphic work.

23 November 2017

Vicente Paredes' hard-hitting Pony Congo goes on show at Espace Images Vevey

Contrasting images of children shot in Congo and in Spain, Vicente Paredes questions perceptions of wealth and happiness, freedom and self-consciousness. Pony Congo is now going on show at Espace Images Vevey; this is an update of a BJP interview first published in 2016. “You have to bear in mind that the kids in my book will never meet in real life. It is the viewer who must imagine what would happen if they were to meet. Ideas such as colonialism, misery, pity and mistrust are in our minds, not in the pictures themselves.”

16 November 2017

Burberry hosts a star-studded, three-floor documentary show

Martin Parr, Bill Brandt, Karen Knorr, Shirley Baker, Brian Griffin, Daniel Meadows, Chris Steele-Perkins, Mark Power, Tom Wood, Roger Mayne, and Tony Ray-Jones are all showing work in a new exhibition hosted by Burberry during London Fashion Week (and beyond). Installed over three floors in Burberry’s new show venue – the 18th century, Grade 2-listed Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell, London – Here We Are will include over 200 images by more than 30 photographers from 18 September-01 October

30 August 2017