During the First World War, John Everett was at first unable to sketch outdoors due to wartime security regulations, but in the spring of 1918, the Ministry of Information asked him to depict London river scenes. Everett received a permit to draw, and that summer, spent every day at the docks.
What attracted him most were the ships covered in ‘dazzle painting’. Dazzle was a type of camouflage developed by the artist Norman Wilkinson in 1917, in response to the heavy losses sustained by British merchant ships to German U-boat submarines. Everett’s dazzle pictures are among his most daring works for their sense of composition and modernity. They were first displayed at the Goupil Gallery in London in November 1918.

This scene shows how modern and traditional vessels were anchored side by side in the docks. It also inspired a very formal response by Everett: a strong, colourful composition based on vertical lines. The grey structures of the grain silos at the centre are echoed by the dazzle-painted funnel of the ship on the left, and the rust-coloured sail of the small craft on the right, which stands out forcefully from the vivid blue sky.