The Procession in Whitehall, Coronation

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street

This painting of the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II shows the Queen’s golden coach being drawn along Whitehall, escorted by the horseguard. Charles Mozley gives us a view from above, as if captured from a balcony. Crowds are gathered on either side of Whitehall with flags hanging from the buildings. It is one of three paintings commissioned from Charles Mozley to mark this historical event, alongside works by twenty other artists including Laura Knight, Carel Weight, Cathleen Mann, and L S Lowry.
A versatile artist, Charles Mozley was considered one of the most prolific post-war practitioners, working as an illustrator, graphic designer, and mural painter.

Born in Sheffield in 1915, Charles Mozley attended the Sheffield School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. After graduating in 1937, he taught life drawing, anatomy, and lithography for a short time at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Mozley joined the Army and spent the next six years in the armed forces. He resumed a commercial artistic career after the war, designing film and theatre posters, book jackets, in addition to murals for the Festival of Britain on London's South Bank in 1951. An archive of Charles Mozley’s work as a book illustrator and cover designer is held at the University of Reading Library.

Places

England, London, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Whitehall

Subjects

horseback, Gold State Coach, topography, townscape/cityscape, horse, crowd, military uniform, bearskin, flag, banner (as Subject), parade, soldier, guardsman, coronation, street decorations, street, government building, balcony

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Charles Mozley (1915 - 1991)

Title

The Procession in Whitehall, Coronation

Date

1953

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 92.00 cm, width: 71.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the artist, August 1953

Inscription

none

GAC number

2460