Brian Brake
Encyclopedia
Brian Brake was one of New Zealand
's most internationally successful photographers.
Born in Wellington
, New Zealand
, John Brian Brake was the adopted son of John Samuel Brake and his wife Jennie Brake (née Chiplin). He was raised initially at Doyleston, before his father moved the family to Arthur's Pass
, where his father owned the general store, and Christchurch
, where he attended Christchurch Boys' High School
. His early interest in photography was inspired by his aunt Isabel Brake, who exhibited with the Christchurch Photographic Society, and several of his older cousins.
Brian Brake trained with Wellington portrait photographer Spencer Digby from 1945. Three years later he joined Government filmmaking body the National Film Unit
as an assistant cameraman. Brake worked on 17 films at the Unit, mostly as a cameraman, occasionally as a director. Though Brake's skills with studio lighting were utilised, the majority of Brake's work involved the NFU's heavy diet of scenic shorts, including a series of ‘snow' films Brake filmed in the Southern Alps. Snows of Aorangi, one of three NFU films Brake directed, was the first New Zealand film nominated for an Academy Award, in the Best Short Subject (Live Action) category in 1959. It was beaten to the Oscar by James Algar
's nature film Grand Canyon.
Brake left New Zealand for London
in 1954. In 1955 he met Ernst Haas
and Henri Cartier-Bresson
, members of the photo agency Magnum Photos
. This led to his acceptance as a nominee member in the same year, and full membership in 1957. He remained a Magnum photographer until 1967. He worked as freelance photographer in Europe, Africa and Asia until the mid-1960s, when he began working more exclusively for Life
magazine.
He is best known for his 1957 and 1959 coverage of China (where he was allowed an unusual level of access), his 1955 photographs of Pablo Picasso
at a bullfight, and his series "Monsoon" of photographs taken in India
during 1960.
Brake used Aparna Das Gupta (now Aparna Sen
) as the model for what was to become one of his best known photographs from the Monsoon series — a shot of a girl holding her face to the first drops of monsoon rain. The shoot was set up on a Kolkata
rooftop with a ladder and a watering can. Sen describes the shoot:
In the same year as he shot "Monsoon" Brake also photographed in New Zealand. The images were published in the best-selling book New Zealand, gift of the sea (1963). The book remained in print for over a decade and was republished in an entirely new format and with different images, but the same title, in 1990.
In 1965 Nigel Cameron and Brian Brake published Peking: A tale of three cities, which was dedicated to Brake's father, John Brake. In 1967 Brian Brake and William Warren were commissioned by James Thompson
to produce The House on the Klong, which was first published, after the mysterious disappearance of silk merchant and former CIA agent James Thompson, in January 1968. This book was the first of many on craft and art objects. Titles include The sculpture of Thailand (1972), Legend and reality: early ceramics form South-East Asia (1977), Art of the Pacific (1979), and Craft New Zealand: the art of the craftsman (1981).
In 1970 Brake founded Zodiac Films in Hong Kong
and made documentary films in Indonesia for the following 6 years.
In 1976 he returned to New Zealand. Brake commissioned an East Asian influenced architectural award winning house designed by Ron Sang on Titirangi
's Scenic Drive
, in the Waitakere Ranges
to the west of Auckland
, where he lived with his life partner, Wai-man Lau, for the remainder of his life, although he continued to accept freelance assignments abroad. In 1985 he helped establish the New Zealand Centre for Photography
.
Brian Brake died of a heart attack
in 1988.
Brake was careful to retain his negatives and transparencies, as well as copyright, wherever possible. His entire collection of photographs is now housed at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
. The Museum showed his China work in a 1995 exhibition, Brian Brake: China, the 1950s (with accompanying book of the same title), and in 1998, Monsoon: Brian Brake's images of India. Images from this series were published independently in 2007 as Monsoon. In 2010 the Museum mounted a major retrospective exhibition of his work, Brian Brake: Lens on the world, again with a fully illustrated catalogue.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
's most internationally successful photographers.
Born in Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, John Brian Brake was the adopted son of John Samuel Brake and his wife Jennie Brake (née Chiplin). He was raised initially at Doyleston, before his father moved the family to Arthur's Pass
Arthur's Pass
Arthur's Pass is a mountain pass in the Southern Alps of the South Island of New Zealand. It marks part of the boundary between the West Coast and Canterbury regions, 140 km from Christchurch and 95 km from Greymouth. The pass lies in a saddle between the valleys of the Otira River, a...
, where his father owned the general store, and Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
, where he attended Christchurch Boys' High School
Christchurch Boys' High School
Christchurch Boys' High School is a single sex state secondary school in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is situated on a 12 hectare site between the suburbs of Riccarton and Fendalton, 4 kilometres to the west of central Christchurch. The school also provides boarding facilities for 130 boys, in a...
. His early interest in photography was inspired by his aunt Isabel Brake, who exhibited with the Christchurch Photographic Society, and several of his older cousins.
Brian Brake trained with Wellington portrait photographer Spencer Digby from 1945. Three years later he joined Government filmmaking body the National Film Unit
National Film Unit
The National Film Unit was a state-owned film production organisation in New Zealand. Founded in 1941, it mostly produced newsreels, documentaries and promotional films about New Zealand, and for many years was the only significant film production facility in the country...
as an assistant cameraman. Brake worked on 17 films at the Unit, mostly as a cameraman, occasionally as a director. Though Brake's skills with studio lighting were utilised, the majority of Brake's work involved the NFU's heavy diet of scenic shorts, including a series of ‘snow' films Brake filmed in the Southern Alps. Snows of Aorangi, one of three NFU films Brake directed, was the first New Zealand film nominated for an Academy Award, in the Best Short Subject (Live Action) category in 1959. It was beaten to the Oscar by James Algar
James Algar
James Algar was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He received the Disney Legends award in 1998.He was born in Modesto, California and died in Carmel, California.-Selected filmography:...
's nature film Grand Canyon.
Brake left New Zealand for London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1954. In 1955 he met Ernst Haas
Ernst Haas
Ernst Haas was an Austrian artist and influential photographer noted for his innovations in color photography, experiments in abstract light and form, and as a member of the Magnum Photos agency....
and Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
, members of the photo agency Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
. This led to his acceptance as a nominee member in the same year, and full membership in 1957. He remained a Magnum photographer until 1967. He worked as freelance photographer in Europe, Africa and Asia until the mid-1960s, when he began working more exclusively for Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine.
He is best known for his 1957 and 1959 coverage of China (where he was allowed an unusual level of access), his 1955 photographs of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
at a bullfight, and his series "Monsoon" of photographs taken in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
during 1960.
Brake used Aparna Das Gupta (now Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
) as the model for what was to become one of his best known photographs from the Monsoon series — a shot of a girl holding her face to the first drops of monsoon rain. The shoot was set up on a Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
rooftop with a ladder and a watering can. Sen describes the shoot:
In the same year as he shot "Monsoon" Brake also photographed in New Zealand. The images were published in the best-selling book New Zealand, gift of the sea (1963). The book remained in print for over a decade and was republished in an entirely new format and with different images, but the same title, in 1990.
In 1965 Nigel Cameron and Brian Brake published Peking: A tale of three cities, which was dedicated to Brake's father, John Brake. In 1967 Brian Brake and William Warren were commissioned by James Thompson
Jim Thompson (designer)
James Harrison Wilson Thompson was an American businessman who helped revitalize the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and 1960s. A former U.S. military intelligence officer, Thompson mysteriously disappeared from Malaysia's Cameron Highlands while going for a walk on Easter Sunday, March 26,...
to produce The House on the Klong, which was first published, after the mysterious disappearance of silk merchant and former CIA agent James Thompson, in January 1968. This book was the first of many on craft and art objects. Titles include The sculpture of Thailand (1972), Legend and reality: early ceramics form South-East Asia (1977), Art of the Pacific (1979), and Craft New Zealand: the art of the craftsman (1981).
In 1970 Brake founded Zodiac Films in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and made documentary films in Indonesia for the following 6 years.
In 1976 he returned to New Zealand. Brake commissioned an East Asian influenced architectural award winning house designed by Ron Sang on Titirangi
Titirangi
Titirangi is a suburb in the Waitakere Ward of the city of Auckland in northern New Zealand. It is an affluent, residential suburb located 13 kilometres to the southwest of the Auckland city centre, at the southern end of the Waitakere Ranges...
's Scenic Drive
Scenic Drive (Auckland)
Scenic Drive is a road that runs through the bush-clad Waitakere Ranges from Titirangi to Swanson on the western outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand. It is part of Auckland urban route 24...
, in the Waitakere Ranges
Waitakere Ranges
The Waitakere Ranges are a chain of hills in the Auckland metropolitan area, generally running approximately 25 km from north to south, 25 km west of central Auckland, New Zealand. The maximum elevation within the ranges is 474 m...
to the west of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, where he lived with his life partner, Wai-man Lau, for the remainder of his life, although he continued to accept freelance assignments abroad. In 1985 he helped establish the New Zealand Centre for Photography
New Zealand Centre for Photography
The New Zealand Centre for Photography was a established in 1985. Founded by Brian Brake, Matheson Beaumont and Brian Enting after they had yearned for an organisation which would provide a fulcrum for photographers of all disciplines to meet together, to show their work and showcase the medium to...
.
Brian Brake died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in 1988.
Brake was careful to retain his negatives and transparencies, as well as copyright, wherever possible. His entire collection of photographs is now housed at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...
. The Museum showed his China work in a 1995 exhibition, Brian Brake: China, the 1950s (with accompanying book of the same title), and in 1998, Monsoon: Brian Brake's images of India. Images from this series were published independently in 2007 as Monsoon. In 2010 the Museum mounted a major retrospective exhibition of his work, Brian Brake: Lens on the world, again with a fully illustrated catalogue.
External links
- Brian Brake mini-website at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Brian Brake: Lens on the world publication
- Profile and NFU short films at NZ On Screen
- Brian Brake Collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Monsoon exhibition by Brian Brake at the National Gallery of Australia, 1999
- Brake's first published photographs - of an architectural model (1948)