BILL BRANDT, Nude

Early gelatin silver print (printed 60’s) mounted on archival cardboard by the artist Cm 34 x 29 Signed on recto of archival board Framed (dark wood and golden frieze + plexi) size cm 69 x 55 x 3 Original provenance: Phillips, New York USAThe face is recognisable as that of a woman, although the blackness - it seems too black and too isolating to be mere shadow - pares the face down to key forms. The nipple indicates a breast in the lower right hand corner. The band of white which crosses and recrosses the frame of the photograph, creating new shapes and new angles as it does so, is just recognisable as an arm. Like a draughtsman of consummate skill, Brandt sketches in his subject with a minimum of effort. And yet there are enough mid-tones to indicate the modelling of the breast and of the mouth. Because we are not shown the left hand it is possible not only to imagine the woman resting her head gently against it, but also to imagine the fingers holding a mask in the form of a face. Nor do the possible readings end there. Because the elements of face, breast and arm are only loosely associated against a black background, it is possible to see the face detached and floating free in the void - a rising moon with a face like those in children’s storybooks, gazing dolefully down out of a night sky. This photograph is one of the most compact and yet complex that Brandt has produced, and is extraordinary in that it can carry all these meanings simultaneously.Michael Hiley© 2000 Photology Editions 100 to 2000 the century of Photoart