Rescue Workers by Olga Lehmann, watercolour, gouache and ink on paper

This illustration by Olga Lehmann shows the aftermath of an air raid in a London neighbourhood. The widespread devastation of the Blitz directly affected Lehmann, whose home and studio in Hampstead was struck and destroyed by a bomb in October 1940.

After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, Lehmann had a successful career as a painter, muralist, illustrator and designer. During the Second World War, she painted and illustrated London's civil defence activities while her husband, poet Carl Huson, volunteered as an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden. She designed scenes for a mural for the ARP headquarters that showed rescue workers, bomb damage and public sheltering - recurring themes in her wartime work across all media. 'On approaching our house, I realised it had taken a direct hit and lay in rubble. In a daze, I walked around the back and now noticed that half the building had actually been left standing. Air Raid Precautions men were searching and digging around in the debris and didn't see me at first. Somehow, still in my daze, I managed to clamber up the rubble to what remained of our living room and found everything scattered everywhere. On the floor lay the telephone which, amazingly, still had a dial tone. I dialled the emergency number Carl had given me and was informed he was dealing with a bomb incident at Lyons Corner House on Tottenham Court Road. A policeman came on the line, and I asked him to contact my husband, tell him that I would await him in a neighbour’s house across the street. By this time one of the Air Raid Precautions men had spotted me, yelling that I had no business to be up there and to come down at once. I did so of course, but not before I had a few pictures tucked under my arm' - Olga Lehmann. Purchased in 1990. Copyright: the artist's estate / RAF Museum.