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 busy river scene shows a wealth of steam vessels of various sizes, painted in vibrant dazzle camouflage. In the foreground, a bargeman draws the viewer’s eye into the composition, but also gives a sense of the scale of the ships. This drawing came to the Museum in poor condition. Its display here was the opportunity to conserve it, repairing tears and filling losses to the work’s edges.