Paul Nash was a Twentieth Century artist  known for his war scenes and surrealist visions

When and Where was he Born?

11th May 1889, London, England.

Family Background:

Paul Nash was the eldest of three children of the Barrister Harry Nash and Caroline Maud Nash.

Education:

Colet Court Preparatory School of St. Paul’s, London. Failed to pass his naval entrance examination. Chelsea Polytechnic. Bolt Court Art School. Slade School of Art, London.

Chronology/Biography of Paul Nash:

1901: Family move to Wood Lane House, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. The garden here was to inspire his later landscape drawings.

1906: Paul Nash began experimenting with pen and ink drawings.

1909: His work for a poster competition at Bolt Court Art School was highly praised by the tutor William Rothenstein and the two became lifelong friends.

1910: Met and became friends with Ben Nicholson at the Slade School of Art.

1911: Nash began to concentrate on landscapes as he felt his figurative work was not up to standard.

1912: Visited the Wells family at Sinodun House in Berkshire and made drawings of Wittenham Clumps. (November) First one-man exhibition at the Carfax Gallery, London.

1913: A friend at the Slade School introduced him to his future wife Margaret. (May) showed work at the New English Art Club and was praised by Roger Fry. (November) Held a joint exhibition with his brother John at Dorien Leigh Gallery in South Kensington, London.

1914: Paul Nash joined the Omega workshops and worked with Fry on the restoration of the Frescoes by Mantegna at Hampton Court Palace. Met the poets Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. (May) He was included in “Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. (July) Visited the Lake District and made a number of landscape paintings. (December) Enlisted in the Artist’s Rifles at the outbreak of the First World War.

1917: After serving in the Home Service Nash is posted to France but is invalided out after being wounded in the Ypres salient in May. (June) One-man exhibition of war drawings at the Goupil Gallery. (July) Met C.R.W. Nevinson who taught him lithography. (November) Sent back to France as an official war artist to Passchendaele.

1918: Exhibition “Void of War” held at the Leicester Galleries in London. Shared a studio with his brother John at Chalfont St. Peter in Buckinghamshire.

1919: Paul Nash spent most of the year in London after his discharge from the Army. Visited Dymchurch in Kent and the Chilterns. Commissioned to do some stage design for “The Truth About the Russian Ballet Dancers” at the London Coliseum. Painted the “Menin Road”.

1920: Went to live at Dymchuch and painted many pictures there.

1924: Nash visits Paris and Italy.

1925: Moves to Iden, near Rye in Sussex.

1928: Paul Nash exhibits widely, including watercolours and wood engravings at the Warren Gallery and the Redfern Gallery.

1929: Death of his father.

1930: Nash’s go to Paris and the South of France with Edward Burra.

1931: Visits the United States and takes a lot of photographs with a new camera given to him by his wife. Move to New House, Rye on their return.

1933: Discovered Avebury Stone Circle. Visited Paris, French Riviera, Spain and North Africa.

1934: Spent the summer near Romney Marsh. Moved to Whitecliffe Farm near Swanage in Dorset.

1936: Paul Nash moves to London and settled at 3 Eldon Road, Hampstead. Was a Committee Member and exhibitor at the International Surrealist exhibition held at the New Burlington Galleries in London.

1938: Retrospective of his oil paintings at the Leicester Galleries. Exhibited at the Venice Biennale. (June) Visited the house of his friends Charles and Clare Neilson in Gloucestershire called “Madams” which was to be a major inspiration for his later paintings.

1939: Visited Avon Gorge near Bristol. (August) Moved from London to Oxford.

1940: Appointed Official War Artist during the second World War for the Air Ministry and The Ministry of Information.

1941: Nash made a series of watercolours at “Madams”.

1942: Made paintings at Sandlands, Boar’s Hill near Oxford where he could see the Wittenham Clumps from the garden. Sandlands at Boar’s Hill was an inspiration for his late oil paintings.

1943: Visited his retrospective at Temple Newsam House in Leeds. Made watercolours in Derbyshire. Revisited Dorset with his friend from the First World war Lance Sieveking and saw Maiden Castle, the giant at Cerne Abbas, Dorchester and the Isle of Portland.

1944: Paul Nash made his last watercolours at “Madams” Visited Cleeve near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire and painted the views of the Malvern Hills.

1945: (August) Painted his last oisl “Eclipse of the Sunflower” and “Solstice of the Sunflower”.

1946: (January) Caught Pneumonia.

Written Works:

1923: “Places”.

1935: “Dorset Shell Guide”.

(1949): “Outline” (Autobiography)

Marriage:

September 1914 to Margaret Theodosia Odeh, a suffragette, at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

When and Where did he Die?

11th July 1946, Boscombe, Hampshire, England whilst on holiday.

Age at Death:

57.

Site of Grave:

Langley Parish Churchyard.

Places of Interest:

HAMPSHIRE:

City Art Gallery, Southampton.

LANCASHIRE:

Bolton Art Gallery.
Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool.

LEICESTERSHIRE:

Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester.

LONDON:

Tate Britain.
St. Martins-in-the-Fields.
Imperial War Museum.
Imperial War Museum.
South London Gallery, Peckham.

SUSSEX:

Pallant House, Chichester.

TYNE AND WEAR:

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.

WARWICKSHIRE:

Art Gallery, Rugby.

WEST MIDLANDS:

Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry.

Art Gallery, Dudley.

YORKSHIRE:

University Gallery, Leeds.
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull.
Pump Room Art Gallery, Harrogate.
Cartwright Hall, Bradford.
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield.
Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield.

SCOTLAND:

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
Aberdeen Art Gallery

NORTHERN IRELAND:

Ulster Museum, Belfast.