Paul Nash

F.D. Walker, 1930
Gifted from the above to the parents of Quintin R.W. Walker, 1937
His sale, Sotheby's London, 2nd May 1990, lot 84
Peter Nahum, London, where acquired by the present owner

London, London Artists' Association, 1930 (details untraced).

Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, cat. no.568, illustrated p.399.

Original canvas. There are pin holes visible in the top corners. There are some scattered traces of light craquelure visible upon close inspection, including but not limited to the top right, top centre and bottom right quadrants, with further traces appearing elsewhere. There are some very minor, tiny traces of very light possible surface matter to the centre of the top edge, but this excepting the work appears in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals a small area of fluorescence and possible retouching to the centre of the extreme bottom edge, just below the glass, as well as to the aforementioned pin holes in the upper corners. Housed in a thick gilt wooden frame, set within a deep linen-textured mount. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present lot.
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‘I am now concentrating on oils and think I have made some advance in that medium. Many of the paintings are thicker – more solid-looking and many of the new ones are still life. Still life fascinates me, nothing can be quite so absorbing or so fascinating to paint’ (Nash, October 1927, quoted in Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, p.133).

Paul Nash is an artist best associated with his often harrowing depictions of the First World War and his extensive re-workings of land and seascapes, including Romney Marsh and Dymchurch (see lot 8), but the present painting comes from an important and small body of works executed during the 1920s, a period of readjustment and re-immersion in certain pastoral themes that had briefly occupied him prior to the War, which, by the end of the decade, began to shift towards the surreal.

Towards the end of the 1920s Nash became preoccupied with the still life genre, developing cubist-inspired shapes within these compositions, executed within a chalky pastel palette. As Causey notes, the ‘extreme painterliness’ of these new works executed during his time at Lambourn dominated his 1928 Leicester Galleries show (Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, p.133). The exhibition included Cactus (1928, The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate), executed just after the present work, which developed further the metaphysical abstract approach taken by the artist towards his subject matter. Looking towards this small but fascinating body of works one is reminded of the early, studied still life compositions of Winifred Nicholson, whose husband Ben Nicholson had visited Nash and his wife Margaret at Dymchurch in the early 1920s. Lupins and Cactus hints towards the exotic, with a sharp, geometric angularity developed by the artist from the early 1920s, as seen through landscapes such as Tench Pond in a Gale (1921-2, Tate), soon switching emphasis from landscape towards still life as he further experimented within more abstract structural compositions.