Brian Brake

John Brian Brake (27 June 1927 – 4 August 1988) was a photographer from New Zealand. He is best known for his 1955 photographs of Pablo Picasso at a bullfight, his 1957 and 1959 series of China, Brake was the adopted son of John (Jack) Samuel Brake and his wife Jennie Brake (née Chiplin). He was raised initially at Doyleston, 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 his 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 1958. It was beaten to the Oscar by James Algar's nature film Grand Canyon.

Move to London (1954–1959)

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. In the mid-1960s, when he began working more exclusively for Life magazine.

Brake is known for his 1957 and 1959 coverage of China.

Brake is also known for his 1955 photographs of Pablo Picasso at a bullfight.

Monsoon (1960)

His Monsoon series of photographs taken in India during 1960 were published internationally in magazines including Life, Queen and Paris Match. 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:

The Monsoon series significantly increased Brake's fame.

Brake made his home base in Hong Kong starting in 1962. In the late 1960s, Brake primarily produced museum-style books on Asian artworks. He lived there 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.

In the 1981 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brake was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to photography.

Brake died at Titirangi of a heart attack in 1988.

Legacy

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 an 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.