John Nash - part 4

John Nash with Christine Kühlenthal 1976
© 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 & 3 also.

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

(note: the remainder of these works are undated):

n.d. A landscape with Trees near Kessingland
pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour on paper, inscribed with colour notes and squared for transfer
 21.5 x 27.9 cm

n.d. A Tricky Moment
wood engraving 10.1 x 7.5 cm

n.d. A World of Men
pencil, pan and black ink with brush and black wash on ivory wove card 28.1 x 29.6 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

n.d. Alders on the Stour
watercolour and pencil 35 x 54.5 cm

n.d. Ad Cypassiam ancillam Corinnae, Ovid's Elegies
wood engraving 11,5 x 9 cm

n.d. Anemone Pulsatilla
wood engraving 14 x 10.5 cm (image)

n.d. Autumn Landscape
pencil and watercolour 45 x 57.5 cm

n.d. Berkshire Woods
oil on canvas 60 x 80 cm
Durham County Council, UK

n.d. Black Cat
wood engraving 8 x 6 cm

n.d. Bore Hill Gower
oil on canvas 54.6 x 75 cm
Dover Collections, UK

n.d. Boxted Millpool
pencil and watercolour, lightly squared for transfer
 25.4 x 35.6 cm

n.d. Cat and Kitten
wood engraving 8.5 x 9.5 cm

n.d. China Clay Landscape
pencil and watercolour, squared for transfer 22 x 29 cm

n.d. Cornfield
pencil and wash 25 x 36 cm

n.d. Disused Canal, Wormingford, Essex
oil on canvas 58.7 x 73 cm
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK

n.d. Dog Scratching
wood engraving 7 x 5.1 cm

n.d. Drive the Assailants right out of the Pasture
pencil, pen and black ink heightened with white on paper 14.6 x 11.4 cm

n.d. Epiphyllum in Flower
wood engraving on paper 15.9 x 12.4 cm
Tate, London

n.d. Factory Scene
pencil and watercolour 29.2 x 39.4 cm

n.d. Flowers in a Blue Vase
oil on canvas 72 x 47.5 cm
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, UK

n.d. French Landscape
pencil and watercolour 43.2 x 53.4 cm

n.d. Garden Scene
pencil, ink, pastel and watercolour 32.1 x 27.9 cm

n.d. Grange Farm
oil on canvas 67 x 85 cm
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK

n.d. Hills near Kintail, Scotland
pencil and watercolour 44.6 x 33.1 cm

n.d. Horses Grazing
wood engraving 6.3 x 6.9 cm

n.d. Horses Grazing
wood engraving 6.4 x 6.4 cm

n.d. Illegal Trades-No.1 The Bottled Cherry
pencil, pen and brush and black ink on cream wove paper 24.7 x 33.3 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

n.d. Interior (With Figure) The Musician
wood engraving 15.2 x 11.3 cm

n.d. Interior with Figures
wood engraving
Harvard Art Museums-Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA

n.d. Landscape with Hills
pencil and watercolour 36.8 x 44.5 cm

n.d. Lane Between Trees
watercolour and pencil 21 x 31 cm

n.d. Late Summer, Stoke-by-Nayland
oil on canvas 71.1 x 91.4 cm
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, UK

n.d. Orchids
wood engraving 14 x 11 cm

n.d. Roses
wood engraving 14 x 9 cm

n.d. Skye
pencil, ink and watercolour, squared for transfer
22.9 x 29.2 cm

n.d. St George and the Dragon
pencil, pastel and watercolour 22.3 x 19.7 cm

n.d. Statue in a Garden
pencil and watercolour 40.6 x 30.5 cm

n.d. Still Life of Flowers
oil on canvas 56 x 53.3 cm

n.d. Stour Valley
oil on canvas 59 x 90 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

n.d. Study for a Gloucestershire Landscape
watercolour and pencil 16.5 x 21.6 cm

n.d. Study of Nicotina and Butterflies
10.2 x 11.4 cm

n.d. Summer Flower Piece
oil on canvas 82 x 61.5 cm
H.M. Government Art Collection, London

n.d. Summer Flowers
oil on canvas 75.5 x 60.5 cm

n.d. The Canal Lock
pencil, watercolour and gouache 40.6 x 55.3 cm

n.d. The Cornfield
wood engraving 8.9 x 9.6 cm

n.d. The Cullins
pen and wash 21 x 28.5 cm

n.d. The Farm
oil on canvas 115.6 x 154.9 cm
National Trust for Scotland, Brodie Castle, UK

n.d. The Farm Pond
oil on canvas 59.6 x 76.3 cm

n.d. The Rabbit
wood engraving 11.5 x 9 cm

n.d. The Woodpile
oil on board 49.5 x 61 cm

n.d. Threshing
wood engraving on paper 12.4 x 20.3 cm
Tate, London

n.d. Two Cats
wood engraving

n.d. Walled Pond, Little Bredy, Dorset
oil on canvasboard 50.2 x 70.5 cm

n.d. Weeping Willows in a Pond
pencil and watercolour 35.6 x 49.5 cm

n.d. Whiteleaf Cross
wood engraving 7.5 x 6.9 cm

n.d. Winter Evening
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76 cm
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, UK

n.d. Winter Landscape
pencil and oil on canvas 39 x 51 cm
Girton College, University of Cambridge, UK

n.d. Wooded Landscape
watercolour and pencil 39 x 51 cm