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/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: 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.
