The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Barcelona

Barcelona

April 1932
(British, 1904–1983)
England, 20th century
gelatin silver print
Image: 29.3 x 22 cm (11 9/16 x 8 11/16 in.); Mounted: 39.5 x 32.5 cm (15 9/16 x 12 13/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2007.143
© Bill Brandt Archive/ Edwynn Houk Gallery
Location: not on view

Description

This beggar, possibly blind, kneels and raises his begging bowl to the sky as if awaiting a benediction. Spain was an extremely poor country, but the man’s gesture and pose seem more closely related to past art than to a desire to motivate social change. A key early work by Brandt, this image marks the moment when he began to develop his own style and visual vocabulary. A few years later, he consistently addressed social inequities in a more naturalistic, documentary style.
  • The artist's family, England
    (Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY)
    2007
    David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. cat. no. 22, p. 48
  • Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).
  • {{cite web|title=Barcelona|url=false|author=Bill Brandt|year=April 1932|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.143