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[The Coronation of George VI] / [Trafalgar Square on the Day of the Coronation of George VI, London, Great Britain] / [Waiting in Trafalgar Square for the Coronation Parade of King George VI]

Creator

French Photographer · 1908–2004

Artist

"I was never deeply interested in photography as such...My great passion is pressing the trigger of the shutter: an instant, intuitive drawing," Henri Cartier-Bresson once remarked. In a 1996 interview in conjunction with an exhibition of his drawings in New York City, he stated that he has never considered himself a photographer but rather a draftsman. Although he still continues to produce and e

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Date: May 12, 1937
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: French
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

George VI ascended to the British throne in December 1936 and was crowned on May 12, 1937. Rather than show the monarch, Henri Cartier-Bresson focused his camera on the assortment of spectators gathered to witness the historic event. Some of the men and women appear tired, some proud; one ignores the excitement altogether as he nestles, albeit awkwardly, in the bed of newspapers on the ground. Only the little boy at the upper center, standing exactly where the recumbent man might have sat and glaring a bit roguishly, looks at the photographer rather than at the spectacle.

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