Paul Nash

paul nash 1889-1946

Probably the greatest British artist of the 20C.

It is a scandal that Nash is not better known in Europe and America.

Paul Nash was an Official War Artist during both the First and Second

World Wars.

He studied at the Slade School and later taught at the Royal College

of Art where he encouraged his students, Ravilious and Bawden

amongst them, to work as illustrators, designers and decorators.

An inspiring tutor by all accounts.

The attempt by Nash to integrate his work into modern life was prompted by

an avant-gardist desire to engage with audiences outside of the normal

gallery context. Furthermore he hoped, like his design patrons Frank Pick and

Harold Curwen, that art, beauty and modern life could be reconciled. Of course,

Nash's own work was characterised by the sadness and melancholy of his

own experience during WW1.

original shell poster of Rye Marshes 1932 sold

rare original shell lorry bill poster 1935 p.o.a.

LT posters 1936 sold

WW2 National Gallery print - Battle of Britain sold

shell county guide sold

see also our pages on

london transport posters

shell posters

posters from a private collection

teaset by foley 1933

book design for Bryant and May 1933

Nash was a member of Unit One (1933) and also of the English Surrealist

movement. He wasinterested in photography and was at the forefront of

attempts to integrate photgraphic elements into the visual language of the

fine arts. Nash lived in Judd Street, London, at Dymchurch on Romney Marsh

and in Dorset.

Nash's greatest paintings were often retrospective and symbolic

representations of specific landscapes - the battlefields of WW1,

the sea wall at Dymchurch and Romney Marsh in Kent, the Dorset coast,

the ancient stone circle at Avebury, Wiltshire, and of other ancient

sites in England including Wittenham Clumps.

Nash was an avant-gardist and polemical writer during the 1930s through the

pages of the Architectural Review and Axis.

The images below are of some of Nash's greatest paintings. They are held in

British public collections and we have made a note of the location of each

picture. These are simply our own favourites.

WW1 painting - We Are Making A New World 1918 (IWM)

The Shore (at Dymchurch) 1923 (Leeds)

Winter Sea (Dymchurch) 1925 (York)

Northern Adventure (St Pancras) 1929 (Aberdeen)

Wood on the Downs 1930 (Aberdeen)

Event on the Downs 1934 (Govt Art Col)

Landscape of the Megaliths 1934 (Brit Council)

Totes Meer (Dead Sea) 1940 (Tate)

Battle of Britain 1941 (IWM)

Battle of Germany 1944 (IWM)

contemporary lithograph 1937

cover for the prospectus of Contemporary Lithographs 1937

Wonderful Tate Liverpool retrospective held in 2003

Paul Nash: The Elements

10 February – 9 May 2010

Paul Nash (1889 – 1946) painted beautiful landscapes of the Downs, strange flooded rooms, and classic images of two World Wars. The exhibition includes paintings, watercolours and photographs from the whole of his career, showing how he selected elementary objects, to put them in relationships of conflict or harmony, and found pathways, nests and thresholds between them and within them.

EXHIBITIONS:

26 October 2016 - 5 March 2017 TATE BRITAIN

8th April 2017 - 20 August 2017 Sainsbury Centre Norwich

until 24th January 2018 - Newcastle ( travelling Tate exhibition )

GICLEE LIMITED EDITION PRINT

printed after the original oil painting of The Shore at Dymchurch Kent
numbered limited edition of 850
c.37.5cms. x 54.2cms - image size. (original image size 62.2cms. x 94cms.)
£180

printed after the original artwork for Rye Marshes East Sussex for Shell Oil poster
numbered limited edition of 850
c. 30.5cms. x 55cms.
£180

Wood on the Downs,
numbered limited ed. 850
£180