Walter Bernstein was an important painter and graphic artist from the Saarland who lived in Schiffweiler after the Second World War. His principal work includes illustrations of people and architecture in industrial post-war Germany. He placed a special emphasis on the representation of the living environments of miners, which he also regarded from a socially critical point of view by his works. The painting "Saarbrücker Kohlehafen mit Burbacher Hütte" was created in the 1960s and showed the cargo barges and loading cranes of the Saarbrücken harbour. The chimneys of the Burbach steelworks rise on the horizon. Their smoke is painted in red shades that contrast the blue of the sky and the water. The red smoke is mirrored in the Saar water of the painting's foreground in a dramatic fashion with almost expressionistic colours.