Artist

Alvin Langdon Coburn

London:  A Sphinx
A Sphinx, The Embankment, London
Bust of Dionysus, Platon
Trafalgar Square

Alvin Langdon Coburn is an artist. 11 works are cataloged here, principally at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Alvin Langdon Coburn kept a tiny camera in every coat pocket, snapping odd angles of London’s streets while pretending to window-shop. He tilted the camera toward the sky to make towers look like they were melting, and once turned the Thames into a smooth, sphinx-like ribbon. His trick was simple: shoot from high up or down low, then print it extra dark so the city feels like a dream you can’t quite place. Try flipping through *The British Lion* (1909) on your phone—see how the blurred crowd turns into a single pulsing mass.

Works by Alvin Langdon Coburn

Collections represented

Victoria and Albert Museum

Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum in the United Kingdom is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects.

Catalog records compiled from museum open-access collections; the artworks shown are in the public domain. Spotted an error in this record? Tell us.