Asleep in the Sarcophagus in Christ Church, Spitalfields

Description

This startling image of a man sleeping in a coffin was taken by Bill Brandt during the Blitz, a German bombing campaign against London during World War II. Brandt was a talented documentary photographer known for night photography, whose work appeared in British periodicals and his own books, such as A Night in London (1938). He was recruited by Britain’s Ministry of Information to document civilians sheltering from air raids. While many sought shelter in the subway tunnels of the London Underground, Brandt’s photograph attests to the use of even eerier subterranean spaces.

Asleep in the Sarcophagus in Christ Church, Spitalfields

Bill Brandt

1940

Accession Number

125266

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

Image/paper: 22.9 × 19.3 cm (9 1/16 × 7 5/8 in.)

Classification

gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) pr

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Lawrence D. Hite