Furniture store in Stepney

This watercolour records the destruction of a London building, a furniture store in Stepney, after being bombed during the Blitz. While the iron beam structure remains intact, the ground is littered with building debris of brick, wood and scraps of metal.
Despite being recommended by Arthur Streeton as an official war artist for the First World War, Meeson was never commissioned. However, she completed numerous works of art detailing the damage wrought upon London during both world wars. Dora Meeson (1869-1955) studied at the NGV School in Melbourne and in Paris and London. She married the painter George Coates in England in 1903 and they lived in England and Paris until 1921 before travelling to Australia. She returned to London and held regular exhibitions there and obtained painting commissions. Meeson was the first Australian woman member elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in 1919.