Dump of war material, Iceland

Thomas Hennell's watercolour shows soldiers at work on a war materials dump in Iceland during the Second World War. Hennell was sent to Iceland as an official war artist in 1943, replacing Eric Ravillious. He wrote of this posting that "the war effort is seen in a passive state and one turns for interest to local surroundings and people and being a civilian I am more naturally in touch with this". Hennell continued as a war artist in France, Belgium and Holland before travelling to the Far East with the Air Ministry. Captured by Indonesian nationalists in 1945, he is presumed to have been killed soon after.