Muirhead Bone (1876-1953), Official War Artist in both World Wars, was commissioned by the War Office in 1942 to depict the bleak challenges of laying mines off the coast of Iceland. The project was depicted with extraordinary drama as Muirhead Bone recorded the scenes via life drawing of the men in action, operating in saturation and frost. These studies were recorded in Randolph Schwabe's diary, reporting to Albert Rutherston that he had seen the drawings and his admiration that they were 'all done at sea, under very difficult conditions, with obstacles that only Bone could surmount'. The result is in The Imperial War Museum 'Winter Mine-Laying off Iceland 1942'.