Paul Nash: The Elements

This book examines the career of Paul Nash, official war artist and one of the great pioneers of British Modernism. David Fraser Jenkins interprets the artist’s work in terms of theme and visual symbolism, bringing together paintings from different periods, and considering how the artist took elements from the visual world and recreated them within the terms of modern art, developing reoccurring themes such as conflict, refuge and harmony. There are additional essays by David Boyd Haycock on the influence of Thomas Browne and by Simon Grant on Nash’s legacy in the contemporary art world.

This Paul Nash: The Elements book was published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name which began at Dulwich Picture Gallery in February 2010. It includes over sixty paintings and watercolours as well as a group of Nash’s own photographs, accompanied by descriptions by both the artist and his critics, which are often remarkable in their disparity.