The British heavyweight wrestling champion Bert Assirati takes on Mike Marino, photographed by Bert Hardy at a gym in London in 1949.

Women enjoy a beach day in Blackpool, Lancashire, 1951.

*Top,* a boy plays soccer with Ming, his pet panda, 1939; *above,* a Guinness advertisement illustrated by John Gilroy, 1949.

The American boxer Sugar Ray Robinson with Parisian fans, 1951.

*Top,* vacationing in Southend, Essex, 1953; *above,* U.S. Marines in an assault craft during the Korean War, 1950.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the former prime minister of India, 1947.

*Top,* a Buddhist monk memorizes religious texts in a temple in Burma (now Myanmar), 1950; *above,* a crowd watches the Saint Patrick’s Day street parade in Dublin, 1955.

Walking in the countryside of Kent, England, 1951.

Around the World and Back Again

From tenement life to royal weddings to war’s front lines, Bert Hardy captured it all. A new exhibition in London collects the British photojournalist’s best work

“Everywhere I look, and most of the time I look,” Bert Hardy said, “I see photographs.” His 28-year career attests to it. In 1935, Hardy made a name for himself at just 23, when he photographed King George V and Queen Mary passing in their carriage during the Silver Jubilee celebrations. That snapshot, which sold 200 copies, pulled him out of poverty and marked the beginning of his life as a photojournalist.

In the early 1940s, Hardy was hired by Tom Hopkinson, editor of the influential Picture Post. For Hopkinson he chronicled the mass disruption of W.W. II—in Cardiff, Liverpool, Belfast, and Glasgow. In 1942, the magazine asked him to photograph Chinese seamen on Royal Navy ships in Liverpool, who, despite having lived in the country for decades, were paid less than their British counterparts. Hardy documented the seamen plotting what would become a strike of 10,000 across Chinatown’s rough hostels and boardinghouses.