This work constitutes a true working document, providing insight into John Nash’s careful approach to his work. Around and behind the central pen and ink drawing is a mass of numbers and calculations, grids, annotations, and overlapping detail studies in pencil.

It is uncertain what this design was for. Nash had commissions for many book illustrations, and while the subject matter is not completely unrelated to his many botanical studies, it is a fairly singular design.

Likely drawn in the 1920s or 30s, this is a picture with a strikingly modern feel. With a thick mount and handsome frame, it presents well and holds a wall.

John Nash and his older brother Paul are perhaps now most famous for their work as official war artists in the First World War. While they were each appointed again in the Second World War (two of the only British artists commissioned in both conflicts), their large oil paintings of the first war were their most successful and became some of the most memorable images of the conflict.

It can be difficult not to call to mind major works like Oppy Wood and The Menin Road when looking at their later peacetime landscapes. It is also interesting to consider the emotional experience of their war work, coming before large bodies of post-war work. The Imperial War Museum’s Over the Top records the beginning of an attack that left 68 of the 80 men in John Nash’s unit dead or wounded – it is a remarkable work for a 24-year old in all respects and Nash did not manage to produce anything of the same quality in the Second World War.

Despite this connection to war art, John Nash was able to distinguish himself as a book illustrator, botanical artist and painter of landscapes, and enjoyed a highly successful wider career.

In 1967 he became the first living artist to be given a retrospective at the Royal Academy. His works are held by the IWM, Tate, Courtauld Institute and the Government Art Collection.
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Provenance:

The John Nash Estate (stamp verso)