Nash, Paul

views updated May 11 2018

Nash, Paul (1889–1946). Painter and graphic artist. Originally intended for the navy, Nash failed to qualify and went to study art at the Slade School. Wounded during the 1914–18 war, he was appointed an official war artist and examples of his work from this time, We are Making a New World and The Menin Road, are in the Imperial War Museum. In the 1920s and 1930s Nash became established as one of the most individual painters of his day. Essentially a landscape artist, who saw himself as a successor to Blake and Turner, and influenced by modern European movements, his work was imbued with deep, sometimes prophetic symbolism. In the Second World War, he was again an official war artist; his Totes Meer (Dead Sea) and Bomber in the Corn hang in the Tate Gallery. He was also highly successful as a fabric and scenery designer, photographer, writer, and book illustrator.

June Cochrane

Nash, Paul

views updated May 23 2018

Nash, Paul (1889–1946) English painter and graphic artist. Devoted to the English countryside, he was also closely in touch with European modernism. Surrealism helped to stimulate the poetic, dream-like style of his landscapes, as in The Menin Road (1918) and Landscape from a Dream (1938).