In Town, is a series of lectures about major exhibitions in other London galleries. Experts will talk in depth about the artists, their background and influences.
Jessica Saraga, Tate guide and a painter herself, writes here about Paul Nash, one of the most distinctive British artists of the twentieth century. Jessica will give a talk at Dulwich Picture Gallery Thursday November 24, or further details of the series, see below.
Paul Nash – his importance in developing British modernism
Among Paul Nash’s best loved paintings are the lyrical landscapes whose sense of place has come to be seen as quintessentially English. His feeling for the history of the English landscape highlights the interaction between humanity and nature, where wilderness is cultivated into garden, where megaliths march over chalk at Avebury, or where the sea wall holds back high tides at Dymchurch. This feeling for location is equally evident in his work as a War Artist in 1917, where it brings home the tragic transformation of the farmland of Northern France into a vista of utter devastation. Nash’s characteristic palette of ochres, dark reds and blues, sombre and livid when conveying the desolate scenes he encountered in France, lightens into pinks, azure blues and mint greens to express the English landscape.
Nash’s range was broad. Between the wars he stood at the forefront of the international avant-garde. He looked for an art that would express the here and now, conveying a spirit of his time that could not be mistaken. To this end he embraced what he saw as the two dominant strands of modernism: abstraction and surrealism. Though his finished purely abstract paintings are rare, his view of abstraction as primarily a concern with structure and geometry is evident in his many book cover designs and illustrations. He had joined Roger Fry’s Omega workshops in 1914, and maintained a strong interest in design. Like many other artists he became involved in the 1930s in the famous Shell county guides and posters. The depressed art market of this decade meant artists were versatile by necessity, but Nash’s intellectual interest and practical talent meant that for him it was also by inclination.
Landscape from a Dream 1936-8 Paul Nash 1889-1946 Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1946. Tate, art work N05667
In Surrealism Nash found an easy appeal. He had always admired how Giorgio de Chirico, one of the great influences on Surrealist art, conveyed mystery and drama through strange juxtapositions and manipulated perspective. Nash began to incorporate these ideas into his own paintings, and to draw attention to the strangeness of found objects. His picture titles– Voyages of the Moon, Mansions of the Dead, Landscape from a Dream - emphasise his feeling for what is perceived only in the mind. The personal mythology expressed in his visionary landscapes and floating, aerial images of flowers must have owed something to his perennial poor health. We can see in his paintings something of the liberation he craved from his chronic asthma - an escape, as he said, ‘into vast, lonely spaces in complete freedom’. His unfinished ‘Sunflower’ series was the last before his early death in his mid fifties. It fuses a cosmic perspective on the seasons and phases of the moon with the glowing light and colour of his enduringly vibrant landscape vision.
The lecture on Paul Nash at Dulwich Picture Gallery on November 24th coincides with Tate Britain’s Paul Nash exhibition (26 October 2016 – 5 March 2017), which shows work from throughout the artist’s life, emphasising his importance in the development of British modernism.
Jessica Saraga
Tate Guide, Painter and Printmaker
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In Town Lecture Series
Organised by Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery
7.00 for 7.30pm
Linbury Room, Dulwich Picture Gallery
£12, Friends £10
Includes a glass of wine
Abstract Expressionism
Covers the acclaimed exhibition at the Royal Academy
Thursday 20 October
Beyond Caravaggio
Thursday 27 October
This exhibition will open 12 October at the National Gallery
Paul Nash
Thursday 24 November
This exhibition opens at Tate Britain 26 October
South Africa: A Million Years of Art
Tuesday 29 November
This exhibition runs from 27 October at the British Museum
Tickets can be bought
Online at www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk
By phone 020 8299 8750 10 am -4 pm £2 handling fee
Or from the ticket desk at the gallery
