| Who
was Paul Nash? Painter and War Artist.

Date and Place of
Birth: 11th May 1889,
London, England.
Family Background:
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:
1901: Family move
to Wood Lane House, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. The garden here
was to inspire his later landscape drawings.
1906: 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: 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: 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 he 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: 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: Visits Paris
and Italy.
1925: Moves to
Iden, near Rye in Sussex.
1928: 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: 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: 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: 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.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
Tate Modern.
St. Martins-in-the-Fields.
Imperial War Museum.
Date and Place of
Death: 11th July 1946, Boscombe, Hampshire, England
whilst on holiday.
Age at Death:
57.
Site of Grave:
Langley Parish Churchyard.
|