Portrait of a Young Girl, Eaton Place, 1939, and Soho Bedroom, 1932

Sotheby’s, auction, New York, 8 October 1997, lot 335 Estate of Robert Noakes

Bill Brandt experimented with photography of the nude in the 1930s and early 1940s before making a breakthrough when he started using a wide-angle camera, a 1931 Kodak used by police officers at crime scenes. He described: “Instead of photographing what I saw, I photographed what the camera was seeing. I interfered very little and the lens produced anatomical images and shapes which my eyes had never observed.” These works reveal Brandt’s familiarity with the École de Paris, especially the works of Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Hans Arp and Henry Moore. The following two works explore Brandt’s fascination with light and shade, the abstract and the sensual. His camera also captures not only the rooms inhabited by his models but also their bodily presence. “Portrait of a Young Girl, Eaton Place, London” exemplifies that tension: the girl face’s appears almost sculptural while the shadow of her visible eye is juxtaposed with the brightness coming through the windows in the background. “Soho Bedroom” instead presents a couple embracing by a bed as the soft glow of a table lamp illuminates the scene at right.