Focus on 'Wood on the Downs' & 'Pillar and Moon' Prints by British Artist Paul Nash
Celebrated artist Paul Nash is hailed as one of the most important British landscape painters of the 20th century. Nash was a Surrealist and War artist but was also well respected as a photographer, writer, book illustrator and designer of stage sets, posters and wall paper. Born in London in 1889, Paul Nash studied painting at the Slade art school which is where he discovered his love of landscape painting. Inspired by his love of ancient history, many of his landscape paintings featured burial mounds, Iron Age hill forts such as Wittenham Clumps and the standing stones at Avebury in Wiltshire. Below is one of his best-loved scenes entitled simply 'Wood on the Downs'. This striking oil painting features Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire near where Nash played as a boy. Although Nash frequently preferred to depict the autumnal English landscape with its muted and more sombre colours in this print it is Spring and the trees are in leaf, the grass is green and the pale chalk of the downs leads the eye into in the distance.
Painter Paul Nash went on to become (like his comtemporary Eric Ravilious) a War Artist and the artworks he produced during World War I are among the most iconic images of the conflict. Many of them focus on landscape and often have a touch of Surrealism about them. His paintings of aircraft produced during World War II are sinister, anthropomorphic and entirely unlike anything seen before.
Symbolism is a strong element of Paul Nash's work as seen in this exquisite Limited Edition Art Print 'Pillar and Moon'. Originally an oil painting on canvas, the dream-like, slightly mysterious work 'Pillar and Moon' by Paul Nash features a stone gate post and a long avenue of trees which was once intended as entrance to a grand house at Ascot Park near the Oxfordshire village of Stadhampton. Nash said of this painting: ‘The pale stone sphere on top of the ruined pillar faces its counterpart the moon, cold and pale and solid as stone. No legend or history attaches to such a picture; its drama is inherent in the scene'. Regrettably the house itself burned down, and subsequent attempts to rebuild it failed through lack of funds.
Below you will find our Paul Nash limited edition print 'Shore'. Originally an oil painting on canvas, this seascape depicts the shore at Dymchurch in Kent where the artist lived with his wife. Other titles in our range of Paul Nash limited edition prints include 'Event on the Downs' and 'Rye Marshes'. They are available as lovingly produced, high-quality digital giclee prints on 310gsm thick, 100% cotton rag. Each fine art print is hand-numbered and hand-embossed and comes in a limited edition of 850. Fine Art Prints by Paul's older brother John Nash are also available to buy online including 'Frozen Ponds' and 'Landscape Near Hadleigh' paintings.
You might also be interested in our collections of Limited Edition art by other celebrated British painters Eric Ravilious and John Piper.