Paul Nash

British, b.1889, d.1946

Promenade

  • 1920
  • Wood engraving
  • Purchased 2014
  • © Tate, London 2012
  • 225 x 275mm
  • 2014/064
  • View on google maps

Paul Nash was a member of England’s Society of Wood Engravers in the 1920s, and this work, one of his earliest wood engravings, highlights his instinctive approach to the medium. Rather than be tied down by traditional wood-engraving practices of precision and accuracy of line, his mark-making is free and immediate. A jagged, hard-edged perspective intensifies the scene. The waves breaking on the seawall form a series of varied, simplified patterns and shapes. The elongated figures, dwarfed by the wall, intensify the scale of the structure. Nash’s rough and intuitive techniques in cutting the end-grain wood serve to intensify the image and highlight an artist approaching a medium with much tradition under his own terms.

The Golden Age 18 December 2015 – 1 May 2016

Exhibition History