War Damage: Bank Station with Bailey Bridge

During the Blitz, on 11 January 1941, a German bomb hit the Central Line ticket hall, killing fifty-seven people and injuring sixty-nine. This drawing by the war artist Joseph Batò shows the structural damage caused. The crater the bomb made can be seen here, covered with a Bailey Bridge for the traffic to travel across. The station itself was closed for two months as extensive repair work was carried out.

Here, Batò has depicted workers underneath and to the side of the newly erected bridge, attempting to restore the bombed site, while traffic and a pedestrian can be seen overhead. The presence of the vehicles suggests that Londoners are going about their daily lives, despite the threat and damage of the war.

Batò was born in Hungary and studied art in Paris under the French artist Henri Matisse. He arrived in London during the late 1930s as a refugee from the Nazis. In 1942 his wartime drawings were published in the book 'Defiant City: drawings of bombed London'.

This drawing has been stamped with a Press and Censorship Bureau stamp stating 'NOT TO BE PUBLISHED'.