It Happened to Us! by Carel Weight, oil on canvas

After writing to the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) in December 1939, asking to become an Official War Artist, Carel Weight received a commission to represent ‘bombing in a suburban district with people still going about their daily affairs’.

Weight’s typical subject matter included the events of everyday human life – variously banal, dramatic or absurd – making him well-suited to document such scenes. However, when he submitted this dramatic first-hand account of a bomber-pursued trolley-bus in Wimbledon, showing anything but calm perseverance amid chaos, the WAAC declined it, saying that it did not meet the brief. Following short-term contracts, towards the end of the Second World War in 1945 Weight received a full-time Official War Artist commission. Purchased in 1980. Copyright: the artist's estate and Bridgeman Images / RAF Museum.