Devastation City; Burnt out Interior; Silence

This drawing was one of twenty images of wartime London allocated to the London Museum by the War Artists Advisory Committee in the late 1940s, following the end of the Second World War.

Graham Sutherland's drawing evokes the profound stillness that enveloped the ruined City of London after the Blitz, which began in 1940. The artist later wrote of his impressions of the City in the immediate aftermath of its ordeal: 'I will never forget those extraordinary first encounters: the silence, the absolute dead silence, except every now and then a thin tinkle of falling glass - a noise which reminded me of the music of Debussy'.

As an official War Artist employed on a series of commissions connected with transport, Cornish tin mines, damage caused by enemy action and other subjects on the home front, Sutherland made numerous sketches and paintings of damaged buildings in Manchester and Cardiff, as well as London. The artist made notes and sketches on the spot, then worked them up into finished drawings back in the studio. One such study entitled 'Devastation: City, Burnt Out Interior' is almost identical to this drawing.