Rolf Brandt (1906-1986) and his brother Bill (1904-1983) who became famous as a photographer, came to London from Hamburg in the early 1930s. Although trained as an actor Rolf Brandt showed a keen interest in drawing and making collages; while still in Germany he had developed an interest in Dada and Surrealist artists as well some of those trained at the Bauhaus, such as Paul Klee. In London he continued to work as an actor but to also make visual art. His drawings for illustration were first published in the 1940s and he became known for his haunting, surrealistic style and delicate line.
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This drawing for a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, was one of a number made for the anthology of weird, romantic, if sometimes horrific stories, published under the title 'Come Not Lucifer', by John Westhouse, in 1945. The peculiar qualities of this image are highly individual while at the same time reflective of the horrors which had just been very much part of many peoples lives during the Second World War.
