Coronation of King George VI, London, England

Last updated

Coronation of King George VI, London, England is a black and white photograph taken by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, in 1937. Cartier-Bresson covered the coronation of King George VI, in London, on 12 May 1937, for the French Communist weekly Regards , focusing more on the people who were attending the official procession than in the event itself. [1] [2]

Contents

History and description

This photograph became one of the most famous of the series that he took while focusing on the people who were attending the procession. Many people had waited all night to see the event, and Cartier-Bresson in this picture shows a glimpse of the awaiting crowd on the steps of Trafalgar Square. Six people, two women and one man, at the left, and three men, at the right, with a small space between the two groups, are seated, while clearly expectant for the procession to come. A larger quantity of people are standing, some of them looking to the right, in the direction where the procession would come. A child with a cap stands between the two groups of seated people, looking at the camera. Looking down, there is a man who seems to have fallen asleep on a large pile of newspapers and litter lying in the ground. Cartier-Bresson explained: "People had waited all night in Trafalgar Square in order not to miss any part of the coronation ceremony of George VI... The next morning, one who was wearier than the others, had not yet wakened to see the ceremony for which he had kept such a late vigil." [3] [4]

Public collections

There are prints of the photograph at the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, the Princeton University Art Museum, in Princeton, and the Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston. [5] [6] [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coronation of the British monarch</span> Formal investiture and crowning ceremony

The coronation of the monarch of the United Kingdom is an initiation ceremony in which they are formally invested with regalia and crowned at Westminster Abbey. It corresponds to the coronations that formerly took place in other European monarchies, which have all abandoned coronations in favour of inauguration or enthronement ceremonies. A coronation is a symbolic formality and does not signify the official beginning of the monarch's reign; de jure and de facto their reign commences from the moment of the preceding monarch's death, maintaining legal continuity of the monarchy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri Cartier-Bresson</span> French photographer (1908–2004)

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Street photography</span> Photography genre

Street photography is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martine Franck</span> Belgian photographer

Martine Franck was a British-Belgian documentary and portrait photographer. She was a member of Magnum Photos for over 32 years. Franck was the second wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson and co-founder and president of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominique de Menil</span> American art collector (1908–1997)

Dominique de Menil was a French-American art collector, philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and an heiress to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986.

Beaumont Newhall was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book The History of Photography remains one of the most significant accounts in the field and has become a classic photographic history textbook. Newhall was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his accomplishments in the study of photo history.

Larry Towell is a Canadian photographer, poet, and oral historian. Towell is known for his photographs of sites of political conflict in the Ukraine, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Standing Rock and Afghanistan, among others. In 1988, Towell became the first Canadian member of Magnum Photos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Faurer</span>

Louis Faurer was an American candid or street photographer. He was a quiet artist who never achieved the broad public recognition that his best-known contemporaries did; however, the significance and caliber of his work were lauded by insiders, among them Robert Frank, William Eggleston, and Edward Steichen, who included his work in the Museum of Modern Art exhibitions In and Out of Focus (1948) and The Family of Man (1955).

Fazal Sheikh is an artist who uses photographs to document people living in displaced and marginalized communities around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coronation of George VI and Elizabeth</span> 1937 coronation in the United Kingdom

The coronation of George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, as king and queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Wednesday 12 May 1937. George VI ascended the throne upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, on 11 December 1936, three days before his 41st birthday. Edward's coronation had been planned for 12 May and it was decided to continue with his brother and sister-in-law's coronation on the same date.

Richard Nagler is an American businessman and photographer. Four monographs of his photography have been published. His photography has been exhibited in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe; and included in public and private collections. The work has also been featured in publications including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Artforum International, Artweek, The Los Angeles Times, Playboy Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. Nagler graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 magna cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa with a B. A. in politics and philosophy, and began his career in photography in the 1970s. Richard Nagler is also a book reviewer specializing in photography and other fine arts for The New York Journal of Books.

Humanist Photography, also known as the School of Humanist Photography, manifests the Enlightenment philosophical system in social documentary practice based on a perception of social change. It emerged in the mid-twentieth-century and is associated most strongly with Europe, particularly France, where the upheavals of the two world wars originated, though it was a worldwide movement. It can be distinguished from photojournalism, with which it forms a sub-class of reportage, as it is concerned more broadly with everyday human experience, to witness mannerisms and customs, than with newsworthy events, though practitioners are conscious of conveying particular conditions and social trends, often, but not exclusively, concentrating on the underclasses or those disadvantaged by conflict, economic hardship or prejudice. Humanist photography "affirms the idea of a universal underlying human nature". Jean Claude Gautrand describes humanist photography as:

a lyrical trend, warm, fervent, and responsive to the sufferings of humanity [which] began to assert itself during the 1950s in Europe, particularly in France ... photographers dreamed of a world of mutual succour and compassion, encapsulated ideally in a solicitous vision.

Paul Martin was a French-born British photographer who pioneered both street and night photography.

Peter Johnston Galassi is an American writer, curator, and art historian working in the field of photography. His principal fields are photography and nineteenth-century French art.

<i>Hyères, France</i> Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Hyères, France is a black and white photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1932. It is one of the photographs from the year when he started taking photography more professionally. He took then many pictures in France and in other countries, like Italy, Spain, Morocco and Mexico, with his portable Leica camera.

<i>Seville, Spain</i> (photograph) Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Seville, Spain is a black and white photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1933. He traveled through Spain in 1933, a trip which he documented with many pictures. He took this photograph in Seville, and was one of several that he captured in the same location.

<i>Gold Rush, Shanghai</i> Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Gold Rush, Shanghai, also known by other titles like Gold Rush. The Last Days of Kuomintang, Shanghai, is a black and white photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1948.

<i>Rue Mouffetard, Paris</i> (photograph) Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Rue Mouffetard, Paris, is a black and white photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in a Paris street in 1954.

<i>Juvisy, France</i> Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Juvisy, France, with the French title of Dimanche sur les Bords de Marne, Juvisy, is a black and white photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1938. The picture shows his influence and formation in painting and went to become one of his most known photographs.

<i>Alberto Giacometti à la Galerie Maeght, Paris, France, 1961</i> Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Alberto Giacometti à la Galerie Maeght, Paris, France, 1961, or, in English, Alberto Giacometti at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, France, 1961, is a black and white photograph by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, taken in 1961. The picture depicts his old friend of two decades, the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, as he appears to be setting up his own exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, in Paris.

References

  1. Coronation of King George VI, London (1937), Invaluable
  2. Clément Chéroux, Discoveries: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry N. Abrams, 2008, p. 27
  3. Coronation of King George VI, London, England, Princeton University Art Museum
  4. Andrew Robinson, Sudden Genius?: The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 231
  5. J. Paul Getty Museum
  6. Coronation of King George VI, London, England, Princeton University Art Museum
  7. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston