John Northcote Nash (11 April 1893 – 23 September 1977) was a British painter of landscapes and still-lives, and a wood engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works. He was the younger brother of the artist Paul Nash.

Early life

Nash was born in London, the younger son of lawyer William Harry Nash who served as

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

of Abingdon and Caroline Maude Jackson. His mother came from a family with a naval tradition; she was mentally unstable and died in a mental asylum in 1910. In 1901 the family moved to Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. Nash was educated at Langley Place in

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the ...

and afterwards at

Wellington College, Berkshire Wellington College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. Wellington is a registered charity and currently educates roughly 1,200 pupils, between the ages of 13 ...

. He particularly enjoyed botany, but was unsure which career path to take. At first he worked as a newspaper reporter for the ''Middlesex and Berkshire Gazette'', in 1910. His brother became a student at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

the same year, and through his brother Paul, met Claughton Pellew and Dora Carrington. John Nash had no formal art training, but was encouraged by his brother to develop his abilities as a draughtsman. His early work was in watercolour and included Biblical scenes, comic drawings and landscapes. A joint exhibition with Paul at the Dorien Leigh Gallery, London, in 1913 was successful, and John was invited to become a founder-member of the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

in 1914. He was an important influence on the work of the artist Dora Carrington (with whom he was in love), and some of her works have been mistaken for his in the past.

First World War

In 1915 Nash joined

Harold Gilman Harold John Wilde Gilman (11 February 187612 February 1919) was a British painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group. Early life and studies Harold John Wilde Gilman was the second son and ...

in Robert Bevan's Cumberland Market Group and in May that year exhibited with Gilman, Charles Ginner and Robert Bevan at the Goupil Gallery. Nash's health initially prevented him enlisting at the outbreak of the First World War but from November 1916 to January 1918 he served in the

Artists Rifles The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles is a regiment of the Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R). Raised in London in 1859 as a volunteer light infantry unit, the regime ...

, the unit that his brother had joined in 1914 before taking a commission in the

Hampshire Regiment The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot. The regim ...

. He served as a sergeant at the

Battle of Passchendaele The Third Battle of Ypres (german: link=no, Dritte Flandernschlacht; french: link=no, Troisième Bataille des Flandres; nl, Derde Slag om Ieper), also known as the Battle of Passchendaele (), was a campaign of the First World War, fought by t ...

and at the battle of Cambrai. On the recommendation of his brother, Paul worked as an official war artist from 1918. In 1914 Nash began painting in oils with the encouragement of

, whose meticulous craftsmanship influenced his finest landscapes. Nash's most famous painting is '' Over the Top'' (oil on canvas, 79.4 x 107.3 cm), now hanging in the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

. It is an image of the counter-attack at Welsh Ridge on 30 December 1917, during which the 1st Battalion

Artists' Rifles The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles is a regiment of the Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R). Raised in London in 1859 as a volunteer light infantry unit, the regimen ...

left their

trenches A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from erosi ...

and pushed towards Marcoing near

Cambrai Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the ...

. Of the eighty men, sixty-eight were killed or wounded during the first few minutes. Nash was one of the twelve spared by the shell-fire, and painted this picture three months later. ''The Cornfield'', held by the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, was the first painting Nash completed that did not depict the theme of war. The picture with its ordered view of the landscape and geometric treatment of the corn stooks prefigures his brother Paul's ''Equivalents for the Megaliths''. Nash said that he and Paul used to paint for their own pleasure only after six o'clock, when their work as war artists was over for the day; hence the long shadows cast by the evening sun across the middle of the painting.

Post-war career

Nash married Carrington's friend Dorothy Christine Kühlenthal in May 1918. She was the daughter of a German chemist who had settled in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, and had studied at the Slade. Their only child, William, was born in 1930; he died when he fell out of the back of a moving car in 1935, aged 4. From 1918 to 1921, Nash lived at Gerrard's Cross, with summer expeditions to the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshi ...

and Gloucestershire. In 1919 he became a member of the

New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...

, and in 1921 he became the first art critic for '' The London Mercury''. He moved to Meadle, near

Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end o ...

, also in Buckinghamshire, in 1921, which remained his permanent home until 1944. He frequently visited the valley of the River Stour in Essex and Suffolk, where he bought a summer cottage. After the First World War, Nash's efforts went mainly into painting landscapes.

Eric Newton Eric Newton is an American journalist, Innovation Chief at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a consultant for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, an organization created by one of t ...

, the art historian said of him 'If I wanted a foreigner to understand the mood of a typical English landscape, I would show him Nash's best watercolours." Emotions concerning the war, however, continued to linger for many years; and this was depicted in his landscape painting. This is particularly evident in ''The Moat, Grange Farm, Kimble'', oil on canvas, exhibited in 1922. In this brooding landscape the trees and their tendril-like branches envelope the entire picture plane.The dark subtle colours and evening light give the painting a claustrophobic atmosphere. This painting, completed a few years after the war, is characterised by a sense of bleak desolation that suggests the profound introspection that for many followed the devastation of the war. Although he had a great love of nature Nash often used natural subjects to convey powerful and sensitive thoughts concerning the human condition. He was close friends with the writer Ronald Blythe, who dedicated his best-selling book '' Akenfield'' to the artist, and who shared his love of the unmanaged forest where fallen trees were left to create their own chaos. In 1923 Nash became a member of the Modern English Water-colour Society. In 1923 he worked in Dorset and in 1924 in Bath and Bristol. From 1924 to 1929 he taught at

The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art The Ruskin School of Art, known as the Ruskin, is an art school at the University of Oxford, England. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division. History The Ruskin grew out the Oxford School of Art, which was founded in 1865 and later became ...

(

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

). In 1927, he wrote and illustrated a book on ''Poisonous Plants''. From 1934 to 1940 he taught at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It ...

in London, working on wood engravings and lithographs. In 1939 he visited the

Gower Peninsula Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...

, near

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the C ...

– the first of many visits to Gower and other parts of Wales. Nash was also an accomplished printmaker. He was a founder member of the

Society of Wood Engravers The Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) is a UK-based artists’ exhibiting society, formed in 1920, one of its founder-members being Eric Gill. It was originally restricted to artist-engravers printing with oil-based inks in a press, distinct from ...

in 1920. He produced woodcuts and wood engravings first as illustrations to literary periodicals, and then increasingly as illustrations for books produced by the private presses; these include Jonathan Swift's '' Directions to Servants'' ( Golden Cockerel Press, 1925) and Edmund Spenser's '' The Shepheard's Calendar'' (Cresset Press, 1930). His interest in botanical subjects is shown by his illustrations to

H. E. Bates Herbert Ernest Bates (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974), better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer. His best-known works include ''Love for Lydia'', '' The Darling Buds of May'', and ''My Uncle Silas''. Early life H.E. Bates was ...

''Flowers and Faces'' (Golden Cockerel Press, 1935) and Bob Gathorne-Hardy's ''Wild Flowers in Britain'' (Batsford 1938).Sir John Rothenstein, John Nash, London:MacDonald, 1983

Later life

At the beginning of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Nash served in the Observer Corps, moving to the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

in 1940 as an official war artist with the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in the

Royal Marines The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious warfare, amphibious light infantry and also one of the :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, five fighti ...

. He was promoted acting

major Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...

in 1943, and relinquished his commission in November 1944. After the war, Nash lived at

Wormingford Wormingford is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. The ancient parish of Wormingford on the south bank of the River Stour, north- west of Colchester and south-east of Sudbury, Suffolk, covered 2,322 acres (929 hectares). The Stour ...

, in the Stour Valley in Essex where he had bought the Elizabethan yeoman's house, Bottengoms in 1944. Nash joined the staff of the

in 1945 and continued to teach there and later at the Flatford Mill field studies centre. When in Essex, Nash taught at Colchester Art School and in 1946, along with Henry Collins, Cedric Morris, Lett Haines and

Roderic Barrett Roderic Barrett (1920–2000) was a British painter from Colchester, England. Life At fifteen years old, Roderic Barrett was accepted into the Central School of Art and Design in London. He studied there until 1940, specializing in wood en ...

, became one of the founders of Colchester Art Society and later the Society's president. Nash bequeathed his personal library and several of his paintings and engravings to

The Minories, Colchester The Minories is a Grade II listed building and gardens situated at the east end of High Street in Colchester, Essex, England, near Hollytrees, Gate House and Colchester Castle. It currently houses The Minories Galleries which are run by Colches ...

, who later sold most of the material to the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

. Nash became an Associate of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1940 and a full member in 1951. He became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1964. His retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1967 was the first for a living painter. Nash suffered from severe arthritis in later years. His wife died in 1976; they had been married for over 58 years. Nash died on 23 September 1977, in Colchester. They are both buried at St Andrew's, Wormingford, Essex. Ronald Blythe inherited Bottengoms from Nash.Mount, Harry
"Rural idol: Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield, at 90"
''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...

'', 13 October 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2012.Parker, Peter
"At the Yeoman's House and At Helpston by Ronald Blythe: review"
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', 23 December 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2012. The grave of the artist John Nash

References

* Ronald Blythe, 'Nash, John Northcote (1893–1977)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 200
accessed 26 June 2014

External links

*
John Nash
in the