Beauty And Destruction In Wartime London

As the bombs rained down on London from September 1940, artists carried on responding to their environment and recording what they saw through their works. They captured a city that is recognisable but also unfamiliar, with wartime precautions in place, the fear of the citizens palpable and both destruction but also surprisng beauty weaved through it all. They depict the devastating spectacle of war and capturing lives and humble moments that would have otherwise been lost to history. 

The Imperial War Museum currently has a free exhibition called Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art displaying many of these works. It is on until the 1st November 2026 and can be found on the 3rd floor. I have picked out a few of my highlights below!

Barrage Balloons

This painting shows ‘A Wrecked Barrage Balloon at Dulwich Station’, by A M Weston. Barrage balloons were flown at heights of up to 5000 feet to force German pilots to fly higher. This would then reduce the plane’s accuracy and put them into the range of the anti-aircraft guns. Around 450–500 barrage balloons flew over London during the war. 

A M Weston was attached to a Balloon Squadron at nearby Champion Hill, so may well have witnessed this scene himself. Artists were drawn by the sinuous and unusual shapes made by barrage balloons and their sudden ubiquitousness in the city’s sky.

A Flying Bomb Over Tower Bridge

In June 1944 a German V-1 bombing campaign started, at its height around 100 bombs a day being fired at London. The bomb can be seen as a streak of red across the sky tracked by search lights.

The V-1 flying bombs were basically pilot-less planes, making them the world’s first operational cruise missile. Launched from occupied Europe, the fuel was cut off by an automatic system after a certain distance and it would fall. They were nicknamed ‘Doodlebugs’ or ‘Buzzbombs’, because you would hear them buzzing overhead before the noise stopped, meaning the bomb was falling. V stood for ‘Vergeltungswaffe’ meaning ‘retribution weapon’ or ‘vengeance weapon’.

The Houses of Parliament On Fire

The night of the 10th-11th May 1941 was the last night of the Blitz, but also one of the heaviest. The Houses of Parliament were badly damaged with the chamber of the House of Commons being totally destroyed. 

Leonard Rosoman was an artist who had joined the Fire Service at the start of the war. He also painted the chapel at Lambeth Palace, which I have written about before here. 

Wartime Posters

Also on display were a coupe of official posters from the war. This is a poster designed by Pat Keely, a graphic designer who worked for Transport for London from 1933-1962, showing a tin of sardines. Keely was instrumental in developing a modern style using visual puns, to both stick in the mind of the viewer and not be too distressing.

Staggered working hours relieved pressure on transport and meant more labour could be released for the armed forces. 

preparations For D-Day

In 1944 a small group of artists were invited to the docks to see the construction of floating harbours in preparation for D-Day. Frances MacDonald spent three months painting at the docks and the authorities even built her a little studio on the quay. 

Depicted here is the construction of a Floating harbour. Floating harbours, otherwise known as ‘Mulberry Harbours’ were prefabricated artificial ports that were assembled off the coast of Normandy to offload troops, tanks and supplies after D-Day. 

Haberdashers’ Hall In Ruins

This is a painting, using tempera, a quick-drying paint to allow close precision, by Eliot Hodgkin depicting the ruins of Haberdashers’ Hall. 

Haberdashers’ Hall had been constructed just after the Great Fire of London and was located on Staining Lane in the City, the livery hall for the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. It was totally destroyed by fire on the night of the 28th/29th December 1940. The blaze that night is often referred to as the Second Great Fire of London due to the destruction wrought across the city by the fires from incendiary bombs.

St Clement Danes Ablaze

This is St Clement Danes Church on fire on the 10th May 1941. The church’s ten bells crashed to the ground and only the shell of the church remained intact.

Cecil King, Chairman of the Daily Mirror, described it saying ‘the spire was alight halfway up  the top and sending out showers and sparks – an odd and rather beautiful spectacle’. 

St Clement Danes was restored after the war and today is the Central Church of the Royal Air Force. 

The Home Front

This is a painting by Evelyn Dunbar showing one of the civilian evacuation trains. About 30 ambulance trains were in operation across the UK during World War Two. Each carriage had a red cross on its roof. 

Evelyn Dunbar who created this piece in 1941, was the only female full time artist on the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. Her brief was to record how civilians were contributing to the war effort on the home front. When the committee was dissolved at the end of the war its collection consisted of 5,570 works of art.

Civilians Sheltering

Some of the most poignant I thought were the simple but touching depictions of civilians sheltering during bombing raids. Above, for example, is A Brother And Sister Sheltering in the Underground, 1941, by Edmond Xavier Kapp. 

Kapp was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to create a series called Life Under London. 

The two below are by Priscilla Thornycroft. She was not officially commissioned but simply sketched what she saw around her, making ‘scribbles on the spot’. It is fascinating to think about these as windows back into the past to those exact moments on those terrifying nights.

Finally, this is Southwark Tunnel by Anthony Gross, 1940. 

Similar to Thornycroft, this was created on the spot and then colour washes added later. Cross was among the first and longest serving war artists. He even travelled with attacking troops during D-Day. 

Visiting The Exhibition

The exhibition is well worth a visit, there are lots more amazing artworks to see. The exhibiton has been on since March 2026 and finishes on the 1st November 2026. The opening hours are the same as the museum: 10am-6pm everyday.

I would recommend 45 minutes to an hour to take it all in.

Find out more about visiting on their website here!

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