Amelia Earhart (1898-1937) was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She landed in northern Ireland in May 1932, but this depicts her arrival in a thunderstorm at Hanworth, near London, the following day, where she was greeted by crowds of spectators. Earhart can be glimpsed in the middle distance of the right-hand side of the picture. Sickert based this painting on a newspaper photograph, from which he squared up the image. It took him only five days to complete, and itself aroused much public interest when it was exhibited soon afterwards.