Pen and sepia ink, 20.5 by 35.5 cm

Minton's drawings of the Blitz were based on parts of East London the artist knew well including Wapping and Rotherhide, cityscapes where he witnessed the catastrophic results of German bombing. Minton was also influenced by the devastation subjects of Graham Sutherland which conjured up a powerful Neo-Romantic and hellish vision of life in the city.

Frances Spalding has written: 'The pen-and-ink drawings and paintings he produced (at this time) sing the desolation of war. Though they evolved out of actual experience, he was not concerned with topographical accuracy, but with using what he saw to create a theatre of the soul, an arena in which to explore Kafkaesque feelings of wretchedness, guilt and alienation' (F. Spalding, Dance till the Stars Come Down, A Biography of John Minton, Sevenoaks, 1991, p. 40)