Department: Visual Art

At the outbreak of the Second World War many artists were employed as Official War Artists to record the war efforts both on the front and at home. Bawden travelled to France in March 1940 but didn’t stay there for long, by July he was sailing to Cairo to join the Middle East Command. He visited a wide range of places in the Middle East often trekking thousands of miles across the desert. The exact date of this work is unknown, but from his detailed letters and other records it seems that this dates from his first visit to the Middle East between 1940 and 1942.