Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art

Just over eight decades ago, London was ablaze, suffering from nightly bombardments during WWII. And its artists were inspired as well as terrified by seeing their city transform into a strange, damaged new place. This Imperial War Museum exhibition sees 1940s London through their eyes, combining 45 artworks with photos, objects, and oral testimonies from people who lived through the time. 

Artists including Edward Ardizzione, Evelyn Dunbar, and Bernard Hailstone charted the mass movement of people, the rescue efforts, and the sight of the city burning at night. Many of the images were commissioned by the British government’s War Artists’ Advisory Committee, which was officially designed to create a record of the war, but ended up nurturing a whole new generation of British painters.