Ian Fleming

Rescue Party, Kilmun Street [Maryhill, Glasgow]

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About this artwork

On the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941, during the height of the Second World War, the German Luftwaffe bombed Clydebank and Glasgow in an attempt to stop engineering works and production at the shipyards. In Clydebank every street suffered casualties and entire families were killed in collapsing tenement buildings. On the second night a parachuted landmine fell on Kilmun Street in Maryhill, destroying three tenements. This painting depicts the aftermath of that bomb, showing the devastation of lives and homes. The artist Ian Fleming, who worked as a policeman in Glasgow during the war, has recorded the individual heroism of the fire-fighting and rescue units who often worked under impossible circumstances and who frequently risked their lives on the Home Front.

Updated before 2020

  • artist:
    Ian Fleming (1906 - 1994) Scottish
  • title:
    Rescue Party, Kilmun Street [Maryhill, Glasgow]
  • date created:
    1941
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    Framed: 89.00 x 114.20 x 5.80 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased with the help of the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2004
  • accession number:
    PG 3397
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming