Shared Experience: Art and War

Incendiaries in a suburb, 1941

Henry Carr RA
Incendiaries in a suburb, 1941
oil
72.8 x 91.8cm
IWM ART LD 1518

Workers surround a fallen tree and civilians put out fires in the street, and in the distance industrial sites are ablaze. This is a jarring image, as the ordered life of the suburbs is threatened – street lighting is replaced by fires and quiet living by rapid action – and the city that sustains them is destroyed. The sense of urgency is heightened by Carr’s rapid brush strokes and scratching of the paint surface.