Edith Tudor-Hart

Caledonian Market, London

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About this artwork

In this image Tudor-Hart focuses the viewer’s attention on the two young girls who are trying to decide what to buy from the pile of clothes and shoes lying in the sun. 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”.

Updated before 2020

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Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart