Painting, oil on canvas, by Leslie Carr, "A night scene during the construction of "Mulberry" Harbour in King George V Graving Dock at Southampton before D Day, 1944". Depicts the construction of Phoenix concrete caissons used in the artificial harbours built for the Allied Normandy landings during the Second World War. The caissons, with large cranes on top, are being built under floodlights with the sea in the background. Smoke pours from the chimneys of steam cranes at left. Signed by the artist at bottom left. Framed, unglazed.

This dramatic painting by Leslie Carr depicts the construction of part of a Mulberry harbour in the King George V Graving Dock in Southampton in 1944, during the Second World War. ‘Mulberry’ was the code name given to the artificial harbours built for the Allied invasion of German-occupied France. They were towed across the English Channel in the days following D-Day landings in June 1944.

The Phoenix units were enormous reinforced concrete caissons which were used alongside sunken ships and steel floats, called Bombardons, to create breakwaters. The graving dock in Southampton was a dry dock, built by the Southern Railway for the repair of large ocean liners and opened in 1933.

Leslie Carr was an artist and graphic designer whose paintings of railway, motoring and maritime scenes were widely used on advertising posters. He created this painting to illustrate a book by Bernard Darwin, 'War on the line, the story of the Southern Railway in war-time', which was published in 1946.