Two new photography exhibitions and a display of vintage cameras are set to launch the autumn season at the Bermuda National Gallery, the official opening of which takes place on Sunday evening, September 28, followed by the opening to the public on Monday, September 29.

The main gallery will feature a wide-ranging body of work by the late British master photographer Bill Brandt. Entitled 'Bill Brandt: A Retrospective', and sponsored by the Bank of Bermuda Foundation, it will continue through December 24.

Complementing the Brandt show is a special local exhibition, 'The History of Photography in Bermuda', which incorporates both artwork from the BNG's permanent collection and significant loans. It features work by Bermudian photographers, among them Richard Saunders, John Weatherill, Nicholas Lusher, John Athill Frith and James Heyl, as well as visiting artists, including Karl Struss.

Rounding out the local exhibition is a display of vintage cameras owned by a local photography aficionado.

'Bill Brandt: A Retrospective' spans 50 years of his far-reaching career through 155 vintage gelatin silver prints from the Bill Brandt Archive in London. The photographer's vision extends from photo-journalism to moody, atmospheric landscapes; stark, revealing portraiture; and high-contrast nudes, distorted with wide-angle lenses.

Although driven by historic periods and events, his endless invention and continual search for ways to expand the medium makes his work fresh and timeless. "No other British photographer has made so many memorable photographs as Bill Brandt," Mark Hayworth-Booth, curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has said. "He excelled in all fields: social scenes, Surrealism, night photography, wartime documentary, landscape, portraiture and the nude."

The British photographer worked as Man Ray's assistant in Paris in 1929, and returned to London in the 1930s to become a freelancer for the 'Weekly Illustrated'. Some of this work was later published as his first book, 'The English at Home'. In contrast to his contemporaries in Depression-era America, Brandt photographed the destitute villages and mining towns of northern England with an expressive, high-key style which pushed the accepted boundaries of documentary and journalism.

"He photographed sharp social contrasts, the glittering surfaces of a rich and imperial city, compared with its humble East End; the coal-black buildings of the northern industrial heartland and the cool, moonlit streets of black-out London during the period of eerie calm at the beginning of the Second World War," Mr. Hayworth-Booth said.

During the blitz, Brandt photographed London by night, and followed the crowds into the Underground to escape the bombs. After the war, his work underwent a shift in focus. Leaving his documentary style behind, he returned to the surreal, as well as nudes, portraits and landscapes.

Brandt's nude studies from this period were published in 'Perspective of Nudes' (1961), and are considered today as some of his most innovative work. Using an old wooden plate camera with an ultra-wide-view lens, he defined new territory, showing among other things photography's kinship with sculpture and modernist abstraction. At the same time, he developed the symbolist potential of photography in a series of landscapes inhabited by the spirit of Romanticism, and directly inspired by the writings of poets and novelists such as Emily Brontë.

As an important figure of the British artistic and intellectual scene, Brandt produced striking portraits of celebrated contemporaries, including Francis Bacon, E.M. Forester, René Magritte and Henry Moore. 'Bill Brandt: A Retrospective' is curated by John-Paul Kernot, organised by the Bill Brandt Archive, and circulated by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions (CATE), Pasadena, California.

The autumn exhibitions are supported by an extensive programme of related lectures, workshops and films. Highlights include a PartnerRe Art Lecture on Brandt on September 30 by Ian Jeffrey, lecturer and art critic from Goldsmiths College, University of London; two photography workshops by local artist Theresa Airey; a PartnerRe art workshop, 'Literacy Through Photography', for local educators and parents; and a Surrealism workshop for young artists. For full details see the BNG website at www.bermudanationalgallery.com/calendar.html