Premonition by Walter Nessler, oil on wood

Walter Nessler painted ‘Premonition’, his most notable work, after fleeing Nazi Germany. He became preoccupied by the Nazi-Fascist bombing of the Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War, memorialised in Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ (1937).

When he arrived in London in 1937, Nessler realised how unaware people were of the likelihood of a German invasion. His imagined London after a German raid is an uncanny, haunting vision of the capital. St Paul’s Cathedral rises from an inferno of twisted girders, shattered buildings and buses. At the outbreak of war Nessler was interned in Liverpool's Huyton camp, before volunteering for Army service as a private in the Pioneer Corps. Gifted by the artist in 1979. Copyright: the artist's estate / RAF Museum.