During the Second World War Sutherland was commissioned as an official war artist by the War Artists Advisory Committee.. Sutherland had been hesitant as to how he could respond as an artist to the commission as his work had been concerned with ‘the more hidden aspects of nature’, works that attempted to ‘paraphrase what (he) saw and ...which were parallel to rather than a copy of nature’.

Sutherland’s first official commission from the WAAC came in August 1940 to record debris and air raid damage. He recorded variously bomb damage in Wales and London, production in the tin mines in Cornwall, steelworks in Cardiff, quarries in Derbyshire and the open cast coal mining. Describing his working methods as a War artist Sutherland wrote that he worked in three stages: ‘notes and drawings ‘on the spot’; then a sort of ‘work-out’ (and) finally the ‘finished’ works’

This work was presented to the Collection by the War Artists' Advisory Committee.

Further reading
Roberto Tassi, Sutherland The Wartime Drawings , Electa Editrice, Milan 1979/ Sotheby Parke Bernet, London 1980
Sutherland The War Drawings, Imperial War Museum, London, 1982