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Lot Essay
Nash found the flints depicted in this painting on a visit to Edward James at West Dean in Sussex. Nash wrote about them: 'Sometimes one finds a pair of stone birds almost side by side. Inseparable complements, in true relation. Yet, lying there in the grass never finding one another until I found them that afternoon on the Sussex Downs, during an attempt to remember whether Edward James lived at East or West Dean. That problem was not then solved, but so soon as my stones came into my hands their equation was solved and they were united for ever. And directly Edward James saw the picture of these two, he wished to acquire it' (see Exhibition catalogue, Paul Nash paintings and watercolours, London, Tate Gallery, 1975, p. 87).
Causey comments: 'Flints and similar objects of unusual or suggestive shape had intrigued Nash since in childhood he had admired the collection of eccentric agricultural specimens at his grandfather's farm ... With flints Nash seemed to be in his element. They were found, and raised from their inactivity to become protagonists in a drama in which there were on equal terms with their environment. Not every object could become this type of protagonist. "To attain personal distinction an object must show in its lineaments a veritable personality of its own ... it must be a thing which is an embodiment and most surely possesses power", Nash wrote in 1937. Such objects are visible to anyone, but their meaning was evident only to the artist. Nash believed, with the Surrealists, that "by finding you create it", and that the object had always been there in the artist's unconscious waiting to be discovered' (op. cit., p. 262).
Causey also notes how close Nash's 1930s work was to that of both Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth during this period: 'There are numerous affinities between the work of Nash and Moore and Hepworth in 1934-6: Moore created forms that were near abstract and yet vital in a way that gave them the status of personages in Nash's definition; Hepworth used shapes such as the oval that are primary but can also be symbolic, and are by no means completely abstract in the way she used them. Like the sculptors, Nash was drawing on both abstraction and symbolism, even if he was considerably further from pure abstraction than Hepworth in particular' (op. cit, p. 259).
Painted in 1936, Encounter in the Afternoon was originally owned by Edward James, an important patron to his many artist friends, in particular those involved with the Surrealist movement. He began collecting Surrealist art between 1920 and 1930 and was a patron of De Chirico, Magritte and Dalì, with whom he collaborated to produce the Lobster Telephone and Mae West Lips Sofa. He also financed the Surrealist magazine, Minotaure, which was published between 1933 and 1939, contributing poetry and essays to it himself.
The West Dean Estate, which Edward James inherited in 1912, lies in close proximity to Woolbeding, and is now the home of the Edward James Foundation, set up in 1964.
The present work was reproduced as a colour postcard for the Soho Gallery in 1936 and Nash chose it for illustration in what became the Memorial Volume. The watercolour study (7½ x 11 in., squared for transfer) was given by Nash to the art critic, Herbert Read.
Causey comments: 'Flints and similar objects of unusual or suggestive shape had intrigued Nash since in childhood he had admired the collection of eccentric agricultural specimens at his grandfather's farm ... With flints Nash seemed to be in his element. They were found, and raised from their inactivity to become protagonists in a drama in which there were on equal terms with their environment. Not every object could become this type of protagonist. "To attain personal distinction an object must show in its lineaments a veritable personality of its own ... it must be a thing which is an embodiment and most surely possesses power", Nash wrote in 1937. Such objects are visible to anyone, but their meaning was evident only to the artist. Nash believed, with the Surrealists, that "by finding you create it", and that the object had always been there in the artist's unconscious waiting to be discovered' (op. cit., p. 262).
Causey also notes how close Nash's 1930s work was to that of both Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth during this period: 'There are numerous affinities between the work of Nash and Moore and Hepworth in 1934-6: Moore created forms that were near abstract and yet vital in a way that gave them the status of personages in Nash's definition; Hepworth used shapes such as the oval that are primary but can also be symbolic, and are by no means completely abstract in the way she used them. Like the sculptors, Nash was drawing on both abstraction and symbolism, even if he was considerably further from pure abstraction than Hepworth in particular' (op. cit, p. 259).
Painted in 1936, Encounter in the Afternoon was originally owned by Edward James, an important patron to his many artist friends, in particular those involved with the Surrealist movement. He began collecting Surrealist art between 1920 and 1930 and was a patron of De Chirico, Magritte and Dalì, with whom he collaborated to produce the Lobster Telephone and Mae West Lips Sofa. He also financed the Surrealist magazine, Minotaure, which was published between 1933 and 1939, contributing poetry and essays to it himself.
The West Dean Estate, which Edward James inherited in 1912, lies in close proximity to Woolbeding, and is now the home of the Edward James Foundation, set up in 1964.
The present work was reproduced as a colour postcard for the Soho Gallery in 1936 and Nash chose it for illustration in what became the Memorial Volume. The watercolour study (7½ x 11 in., squared for transfer) was given by Nash to the art critic, Herbert Read.