Bill was born in 1904, four years after the birth of my Great Grandmother Sugar, who grew up sheltered by the bible belt of deep south, who lived in her modesty, who didn’t possess a birth certificate and could’ve been a subject of one of his many portraits of the working class during that era. Bill could have taken a black and white high contrast image of her tending to her flower gardens, the 4’oclocks and morning glories coming to life. When I think of Bill Brandt, I also can’t help but think of his portrait of Francis Bacon, Primrose Hill 1963. A portrait so honest, so provocative, so intimate that the emotion of destitution is sculpted from Francis flesh onto the blurred street lamp behind him to the trees blackened on the horizon. To be able to capture Francis in the same way as Francis captures his subjects, a violence of soul, a suffering exposed, the human heart hinged on an edge, is a rare talent that one cannot easily learn without the keen eye of empathy to the class struggles and awareness of the suffering that people are subjected to on the daily basis just by being born. Even the nudes he took of woman evoke the same sense of looking- the body as less erotic and more as landscapes of woman to be explored… a geographically emotional ride through the curves and creases as the body contorts itself through the lens.
-Jen Fisher