‘Paul Nash: The Elements’ opens at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Kate Knowles, Head of Communications at Dulwich Picture Gallery, explains the reasons for putting on this exhibition and her marriage.

Paul Nash, Landscape from a Dream, 1936-8

In the 90s (or the Naughties as it seems to be called on television) a great friend of mine suggested that Dulwich Picture Gallery put on Modern British exhibitions.

His name was David Fraser Jenkins, and he suggested it because the Tate, where he was senior curator of Modern British art, had too many exhibitions and so weren’t doing any early 20th century British exhibitions. He said, the other reasons for doing it would be (a) because they are popular and (b) because they are cheap to put on, you don’t have to get them from abroad, they are all to be found in England.

Paul Nash Bomber in the Corn 1940

So I suggested it to our then Director, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, who liked the idea and David Fraser Jenkins put on our first Modern British exhibition – called John Piper in the 1930s.

After that we kept doing them – Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and so on – and now David Fraser Jenkins has been asked to do another – and he came up with our next exhibition, Paul Nash: The Elements which starts at Dulwich tomorrow.

Paul Nash. Kinetic Feature, 1931

Mind you, we’ve borrowed two from Canada, advised by David Thomson, but then we are doing American and Canadian exhibitions, and it was a good excuse to talk to him last time he came to England (he has a wonderful art collection). There are war pictures and pictures of the countryside, and judging by the huge interest from the critics and even foreign journalists, both from Europe and America, it’s going to be a huge success.

I was so pleased with David Fraser Jenkins and his ideas for Dulwich, reader, I married him.

Paul Nash: The Elements continues until 9 May.

and – it will be featured on the BBC’s Culture Show with Andrew Graham Dixon this Thursday (11th) at 7pm.