Asleep in the Sarcophagus in Christ Church, Spitalfields

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.