''Anti-aircraft defences'' is an oil on canvas painting of 1940 by the British artist

Christopher Nevinson Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (13 August 1889 – 7 October 1946) was an English figure and landscape painter, etcher and lithographer, who was one of the most famous war artists of World War I. He is often referred to by his initial ...

in the collection of the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

. It depicts

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

batteries and London Blitz spotlights. It was transferred to the museum in 1947 by the War Artists' Advisory Committee. Nevinson was hugely disappointed not to be offered a governmental commission for his work, and so this painting was created at a time of discord between him and Kenneth Clark.https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20254

References

1940 paintings Paintings by Christopher R. W. Nevinson Paintings in the collection of the Imperial War Museum {{20C-painting-stub