Street in ruins, Villers-Bretonneux, France

Official war artist Arthur Streeton was sent to France with the 2nd Division AIF in May 1918 to record the Somme battlefields. This pencil and wash drawing depicts the aftermath of a major battle at Villers-Bretonneux that took place several months before, in April 1918. Viewed from the middle of the town's main street, Streeton's drawing emphasises the destruction wrought by the Germans and Allies as each army fought for control of the strategically important town. Shattered houses, some reduced to chimneys, face each other along a street littered with debris. Large grey plumes of smoke, probably from artillery fire, shadow the sky above the town; a bleak remider that the war was still grinding on.