National Galleries of Scotland

Caledonian Market was one of the largest flea-markets in London during the 1930s. It was popular with photographers as it offered easy access to a lively aspect of the city’s working-class culture. Fellow exiles such as Bill Brandt and László Moholy-Nagy also photographed there, perhaps because it provided an echo of a complex street life commonplace on the Continent. Tudor-Hart published a photo essay about Caledonian Market in the illustrated magazine ‘Der Kuckuck’ in 1931 titled ‘The Market of Naked Misery’. As she wrote, “of all the working-class districts in Europe’s great cities, those in London are the bleakest”. Here, the focus is on the dynamic between the three central figures.