Shiprail

Details

Paul Nash (1889-1946)
Shiprail
signed 'Paul Nash' (lower right)
pencil and watercolour
9¾ x 65/8 in. (24.7 x 19.3 cm.)
Executed in 1935

Provenance

Dr. D. Anderson Sharpe.
with Roland, Browse and Delbanco, 1952.
with Leicester Galleries, London.
Anon. sale; Christie's, London, 8 November 1968, lot 19, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

M. Eates, Paul Nash 1889-1946, London, 1973, p. 127.
A. Causey, Paul Nash, Oxford, 1980, no. 857, p. 433.

Exhibited

London, Redfern Gallery, Watercolours and Drawings by Paul Nash, June 1935, no. 6.
London, Mayor Gallery, Autumn, 1948, no. 18.
London, Leicester Galleries, January 1955, no. 39.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Executed in 1935, the present composition recalls Nash's 'Atlantic series'. Exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1932, these watercolours showed aspects of the ships on which the artist travelled to and from America in September and October 1931. Andrew Causey (op. cit., pp. 211-12) writes that the series represents 'his most sophisticated use of the camera and his most deeply felt experience of the sea during this period. The watercolours draw on the contrast between what Nash called 'ship architecture' - the guard rails, deck housing, ventilators, and aerials - and the more distant natural elements, the steady swell of the waves and the still flatness of the sky'.

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