A half-length portrait to the left, showing Bell in his dock official’s uniform with his left arm leaning on a stanchion. In the background is a scene of activity in the King George V Dock in Hull, where Bell was employed as a railway officer during the Second World War, with the stern of a ship looming behind him.
The artist, Bernard Hailstone, trained at Goldsmiths and the Royal Academy Schools. At the start of the Second World War, he joined the Auxiliary Fire Service and painted some of the scenes he witnessed during the London Blitz. In 1941 the War Artists Advisory Committee commissioned him to paint civilian defence subjects. Released from the fire service, he moved to Hull in 1943. He continued work in the Mediterranean and North Africa before joining South East Asia Command, where he painted Lord Mountbatten.