(click image to enlarge)
Hennell was sent to Iceland by the War Artists Advisory Committee for three months from 31 July 1943. The British had occupied, the previously neutral and strategically vital, Iceland since May 1940, following Hitler’s invasion of Norway and Denmark the preceding month. In 1943, the defence of Iceland had moved from the British, who remained there in small numbers, to the Americans (30,000 US troops were stationed there).
Hennell spent the first three weeks in Reykjavik and he 'thought the harbour at Reykjavik “really grand”. Writing to Danny Nangle, [housekeeper and companion to his maternal grandmother and then himself] he said he found the "shipping in Reykjavik harbour endlessly interesting" and it provided him "with inexhaustible subjects". He proved as adept a delineator of ships as he was of carts and waggons.'
Jessica Kilburn, Thomas Hennell. The Land and the Mind, London: Pimpernel Press, 2021, page 261
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