War Scene: Queensway Tube Station

Joseph Batò’s watercolour depicts people sheltering on the stairs of Queensway Underground station during an air raid. It reveals something of both the hardship and the solidarity experienced by Londoners during the Blitz of 1940 and 1941. Wrapped in blankets and carrying personal effects, both young and old attempt to get some rest in the least comfortable of circumstances.

Batò arrived in London from Hungary during the late 1930s as a refugee from the Nazis. In 1942, he published a book of his war drawings called 'Defiant City: drawings of bombed London'. After the war, the artist remained in London and worked in the film industry as both a designer and director.