During the Second World War, Topolski, already in England, was appointed an official war artist for the Polish government in exile, and then for the British government. Picture Post magazine sent him to Russia, and he also travelled to Egypt, Palestine, the Levant, India and Burma. In April 1945 Topolski accompanied the Polish II Corps to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, arriving two weeks after its liberation. His drawings of the camp featured in Ben Uri’s 1947 exhibition, Subjects of Jewish Interest, and Topolski subsequently worked as an official artist at the Nuremberg Trials. His distinctive and dynamic style of draughtsmanship made him one of the most celebrated Polish artists in Britain. Topolski’s Chronicles – published in multiple instalments between 1953 and 1982 and containing over 2,300 drawings – and from which this image has been taken and cut down – were inspired by seventeenth and eighteenth-century broadsheets, combined with Topolski’s on-the-spot sketches. Each image was hand-printed on rough brown “butcher’s” paper on a press in his studio, and each issue, devoted to a different news item, was distributed to 2,000 global subscribers, including museums, universities, libraries and private collections. The breadth and scope of the Chronicles show Topolski’s position at the heart of political, cultural and social debates of his time.