British art - Trafalgar Square

Nelson's Ship in a Bottle was unveiled on the Fourth Plinth on the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square in May 2010. It remained on display until January 2012. Soon after the completion of the Square in 1843, the plinths on the other three corners were topped with bronze statues: an equestrian portrait of George IV, and portraits of Charles James Napier and Henry Havelock, both generals of the British Empire.

Trafalgar Square has always been a site of protest, celebration and artistic intervention.

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) in Trafalgar Square

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) dome and spire

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) column

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) from the steps of the NG

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) broadside

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) three-quarter view

Yinka Shonibare, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle (2010) from below

Nelson's Ship in a Bottle - CAD side elevation (February 2010)

Satellite image of Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square (OS map, 1940s)

King's Mews (Trafalgar Square) (Richard Horwood, 1799)

Sandstone statue of Horatio Nelson by Edward Hodges Baily (1843)

Bronze equestrian statue of George IV by Francis Chantrey, northeast plinth, Trafalgar Square (1843)

George IV in Trafalgar Square. Photo Cliff Jones

Bronze statue of Henry Havelock by William Behnes, southeast plinth, Trafalgar Square (erected 1861)

Bronze statue of Charles James Napier by George Gammon Adams, southwest plinth, Trafalgar Square (erected 1855-56)

John Edward Carew, The Death of Nelson (cast in 1849 with bronze from captured French guns)

John Edward Carew, The Death of Nelson (1849) detail with black sailor

William Railton, Architectural model of Nelson's Column (c.1838) NMM

Model scaffolding for the construction of Nelson’s Column (1840) NMM

William Henry Fox Talbot, Nelson's Column under construction (1843) salted paper print

William Henry Fox Talbot, York Minster seen from Lop Lane [now Duncombe Place] (1845) Houghton Library, Harvard

Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery (1890) postcard

Trafalgar Square, London (1908)

Christabel Pankhurst at Trafalgar Square (May 1909)

Trafalgar Square on election night (1924)

Trafalgar Square, London (27 August 1939)

VE Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square, London (8 May 1945)

Willie Gallacher MP speaking at a Communist Party election rally in Trafalgar Square (1949)

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Projection on Nelson's Column Trafalgar Square, London (1985)

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Swastika projection on South Africa House, Trafalgar Square, in protest against British financial aid to the apartheid government of South Africa (1985)

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Swastika projection on South Africa House, Trafalgar Square (1985)

Anti-apartheid demonstrators in Trafalgar Square (March 1990)

Poll Tax riot in Trafalgar Square (1990) Photo David Hoffman

Poll Tax riot in Trafalgar Square (31 March 1990)

The Cenotaph, Whitehall, London, on Remembrance Sunday (2010)

National Gallery, London

Whistlejacket at the National Gallery

In this short film, produced by Art21 in 2010, Shonibare discusses his work in Trafalgar Square in relation to the legacies of colonialism and slavery.

In the first of these videos, British Pathé footage documents a confrontation between fascists and anti-fascist protestors in Trafalgar Square in 1962. The second is a London Weekend Television news report on the anti-poll tax riot in the Square in March 1990.