Monday 25 January 2021

John Nash - part 3

John Nash 1970s by S.S. Walia
© National Portrait Gallery, London

John Northcote Nash, the son of a barrister and younger brother of the war artist Paul Nash (a series on Paul Nash will follow) was born at Ghuznee Lodge, in Kensington, London in 1893. Educated at Wellington College, John started work as a trainee journalist but his life changed when his brother, who had enrolled at the Slade, brought home two fellow students, Claughton Pellew and Dora Carrington, who inspired him to become an artist.

John Nash did not receive any formal training, following his brother’s advice that it would ruin his unique vision of landscape. It would be unfair however to describe John Nash as an amateur artist especially after the notable success of his first exhibition in 1913 at the Dorien Leigh Gallery in Pelham Street in London.

During the First World War, in 1916, Nash joined the ‘Artists Rifles’ before becoming an Official War Artist in 1918. From 1919 he then lived at Whiteleaf in Buckinghamshire where he became part of the renaissance of English book illustration. During the 1920s Nash taught at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford and remained a teacher until the end of his life, inspiring many, including some of the best Kew artists. During most of the interwar years John Nash and his wife lived at Meadle in Buckinghamshire.

In 1940 he was commissioned as an Official War Artist in the Royal Marines, a role he did not especially enjoy, preferring to paint the English landscape, which he did after the war. From 1922 Nash had made many visits to Essex and rented a summer cottage at Wormingford, near Colchester and in 1945 he and his wife bought Bottengoms Farm where they lived until they died.

Nash was made an ARA in 1940 and RA in 1951 and was appointed CBE in 1964. In 1967 he was given the first ever retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy by a living painter. John Nash’s work can be found in many private and public collections such as the Tate Gallery, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.

For more information on John Nash see part 1, and for earlier works, see parts 1 & 2 also.

This is part 3 of a 4-part series on the works of John Nash:

1940 The Farm Pond
oil on canvas 64.1 x 76.8 cm
Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK

c1940 Destroyer in Dry Dock
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76 cm
Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, UK

c1940 Destroyer in Dry Dock
study
Imperial War Museums, London

by 1941 The Sandpit
oil on canvas 57.2 x 92 cm
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, UK

after 1943 The Garden in Winter
oil on canvas 64 x 77 cm
Colchester Town Hall, UK

by 1943 The Alder
oil on canvas 56 x 72 cm
Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool, UK

1945 Window Plants
colour lithograph on paper 49.8 x 76.2 cm
Tate, London

c1945 Boats, Ipswich
pencil and watercolour, squared and annotated for transfer 24 x 34 cm

c1945 Ipswich Docks
pencil and watercolour 32.5 x 20.5 cm

c1945 Lane by a Wood
pencil and watercolour 36 x 51 cm

1946 Ripe Corn
oil on canvas 48 x 73 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

1947 Harvesting
colour lithograph on paper 49.5 x 76.2 cm
Tate, London

1947 The Blenheim
pencil and watercolour on paper 57.8 x 47 cm
Tate, London

1948 English Country Flowers 

published by Gerald Duckworth, London:

1948 Corsican Hellebore (Helleborus Corsicus)
colour lithograph 29.3 x 23.2 cm
Tate, London

1948 Crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis)
colour lithograph 28.8 x 21.8 cm
Tate, London

1948 Great Coneflower (Rudbeckia Maxima)
colour lithograph 29 x 23.2 cm
Tate, London

1948 Jerusalem Sage (Phlomis Fruticosa)
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5 cm

1948 Mullein-leaved Sage (Salvia verbascifolia)
colour lithograph 29 x 21.8 cm
Tate, London

1948 Passiflora Coerulea
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5 cm

1948 Perwinkle (Vinca) 
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5

1948 Petunia
colour lithograph 29.2 x 22.8 cm
Tate, London

1948 Rosa Gallica
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5 cm

1948 Rose ‘Mermaid’
colour lithograph 28.8 x 22.2 cm
Tate, London

1948 Rough Hydrangea (Hydrangea Aspera)
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5 cm

1948 Tradescanitia Virginica
colour lithograph 28 x 20.5 cm

before 1949 Winter Scene
oil on canvas 76.2 x 127 cm
Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection, UK

1949 The Dingle Winter
oil on board 107.5 x 120.5 cm
County Hall, Leicestershire County Council Artworks Collection, Leicester, UK

before 1950 Meadle, Summer
pencil and watercolour on paper 31 x 38.5 cm

1950 Flowers (Christmas Card)
ink and pencil 28 x 22 cm

c1950 Rocks and Water
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76.2 cm
Craven Museum & Gallery, Roebuck Collection, Skipton, UK

1951 Autumn, Berkshire
oil on canvas 68.5 x 84 cm
County Hall, Leicestershire County Council Artworks Collection, Leicester, UK

1951 The Fallen Tree
oil on canvas 70 x 91.7 cm
Royal Academy of Arts, London

1951 The Garden
oil on canvas 58.7 x 79 cm
County Hall, Leicestershire County Council Artworks Collection, UK

1952 The Lake, Chicknell
oil on canvas 63 x 76 cm
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK

c1952 Landscape with Canal, Lock and Bridge
oil on canvas 61 x 92.8 cm

before 1953 An Avenue of Elms
oil on canvas 71 x 81 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

1953 Frozen Ponds
oil on canvas 50.5 x 60.5 cm
National Museum Wales, National Museum Cardiff, UK

1953 Panorama of Pyramids
oil on canvas 66 x 126 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

1953 Pool in the Woods
pencil and watercolour 39.4 x 41.9 cm

before 1954 The Flooded Meadow
oil on canvas 56.3 x 76.8 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

1954 The Barn, Wormingford
oil on canvas 66 x 82.5 cm
Royal Academy of Arts, London

1955 Fallen Tree
watercolour on paper 43.8 x 55.2 cm
Tate, London

c1955-65 The Breakwater
oil on canvas 61 x 76.2 cm

c1955 Buoys at Harwich
watercolour on paper 43.2 x 53.3 cm
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, UK

c1955 Lane through a Quarry
oil on canvas 61 x 75 cm

c1958 The Lake, Little Horkesley Hall
oil on canvas 60.6 x 76 cm
Royal Academy of Arts, London

1959 Wild Garden, Winter
watercolour on paper 40.6 x 57.1 cm
Tate, London

1962 A View of a Pond in a Rural Landscape near Cambridge
oil on canvas 55.6 x 75 cm
St John's College, University of Cambridge, UK

1962 Melting Snow at Wormingford
oil on canvas 46 x 75 cm
Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK

1962 Mill Building, Boxted
oil on canvas 71.1 x 81.3 cm
Tate, London

1973 Sandy Bowl, Wooded Landscape, Cornwall
watercolour and chalk on paper, lightly squared for transfer 28.9 x 42.9 cm

1974 Skye
oil on canvas 76 x 63.5 cm
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, UK

1976 Beached Boats
watercolour and pencil 37.5 x 50 cm

n..d. The Countryside
wood engraving 9 x 9 cm

n.d. A Berkshire Hillside
oil on canvas 70 x 75 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

n.d. A Cottage in Gloucestershire
wood engraving on paper 12.4 x 17.1 cm
Tate, London


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