Political Events

About

Governments have long commissioned pictures of their victories, treaties and ceremonies. Diego Velázquez's The Surrender of Breda (1634–35) shows the Spanish commander Ambrogio Spinola receiving the city's keys from its Dutch governor, and Jacques-Louis David's vast The Coronation of Napoleon (1805–07) staged a new empire's legitimacy in velvet and gold. Artists could also respond without permission: Édouard Manet's The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868–69) could not be shown in France while Napoleon III, whose policy had left Maximilian exposed, remained in power.

Photography put the witness on the spot. Ernest Withers recorded the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968, with marchers holding placards that read I AM A MAN, and Emory Douglas designed graphics for the Black Panther Party's newspaper. Li Zhensheng photographed public denunciations during the Cultural Revolution and kept the negatives hidden for years. Look for crowds, banners and uniforms, and for clues to who commissioned the picture.