Nevinson was a Futurist and, as such, an interpreter of the stream-lined dynamism and speed of the machine age, using the vocabulary of Cubism. He was the only modernist among the artists chosen for The Great War lithographs and, not coincidentally, dealt with the most modern of wartime industries, "Building Aircraft."

Engine makers working metal lathes powered by overhead belts provided Nevinson with a subject that supplied the very lines of force and multiple motion that the Futurists sought to portray.