Paul Nash. 1889-1946.
A PORTFOLIO OF TWENTY-FOUR WOOD-ENGRAVINGS.
A PORTFOLIO OF TWENTY-FOUR WOOD-ENGRAVINGS.
1985. Edition 45 numbered 1-45 and an additional I-XV not for sale. This is number #40. Each has a 'PNT' (Paul Nash Trust) blindstamp. Printed on Japanese Hosho paper by Ian Mortimer. In the catalogue notes that follow the titles of entries 17-24 are new titles created at this time. All dimensions are in millimetres, height first. Average size: 230 x 155 millimeters.
Upon the sale of the remaining contents of the Curwen composing room in 1984, seventeen of Paul Nash’s original engraved wood blocks came to light. A further eight previously uncatalogued blocks were then discovered through the Nash Trustees. Twenty-four of these blocks were used by Garton & Cooke to produce a limited edition of sixty impressions from each block for publication as a set in May 1985. The blocks were printed by Ian Mortimer and the resulting impressions are of consistently high quality. All are in excellent original condition.
2. ABSTRACT NO 1, 1924. 102x31.
Nash printed this engraving on white wove paper, as here, and on a white wove paper with a rust coloured background design. The comparison between the two is striking, for the rust background disuses the strength of the image and enhances its decorative qualities. These differences take on further significance in the light of Nash's attitude towards abstract art. He only found it an appropriate medium for the applied arts. Medium apart, this engraving has no allegiance to the applied arts, and when printed on white wove paper is a highly successful abstract design, in which the dynamic rhythms of arcs, planes and curves are expertly set off by Nash's skilled and sure range of cutting. $150.
5. BIRDS, 1923 164 x 132
Nash's fourth engraving for Welchman's Hose illustrates Robert Gravest poem 'To An Editor' in which he relates the common plight of the poet who awaits payment from his publisher. Nash chooses a symbolic interpretation; by depicting the poet in the guise of a bird, he comments on the plight of the poet's "winged artistic soul" at the mercy of the commercial world. $125.
6. DECORATION, 1923. 38x32.
This tiny abstract engraving appears twice in Welchmans Hose, and makes an appropriate tail-piece decoration to this volume of poems. $95.
8. PATTERN PAPER NO 24, 1928. 40 x 80.
This is one of two blocks used for this pattern paper. The original design, subsequently reproduced on the cover of The Night Jaw by E.B. Brown uses this block superimposed over areas of ochre on buff paper. It is interesting to note that in this block and the previous one Nash includes more than the area of the pattern repeat, which simplifies the printing by making the break between the blocks harder for the eye to discern. $95.
10. PARADISE, 1928. 136 x 93.
This is Tellier's "garden of delights" which "the white rivers water with their milk" and in which "here and beneath the trees, in languid attitude the blest recline". The engraving shows Nash's true mastery of his medium, the sense of space and airiness is quite unusual and conveys the effortless atmosphere of luxury and one-ness with nature. Here Nash transcends the conventional uses of line engraving and crosshatching, reversing black on white, and white on black in order to include the optimum number of scenes without sacrificing clarity, or the overall balance of the design. $210.
12. DESIGN 1, 1929. 101 x 38.
The first design for A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevitch, his young body-guard, and the valiant merchant, Kalashnikov, this illustration appears on the verso of the title page. In the book it is printed in black on grey paper with an over-printing of a red border and a red strip highlighting the front of the throne. Nash's semi-abstract design of a throne complements the opening verses of the poem in which the Tsar is holding court with his bodyguards.
All the engravings for this book are markedly different from those Nash did for Ahd-erRhaman in Paradise a year earlier. They are predominantly geometric, relying on bold accents of black and white that one would normally associate with linocuts rather than wood-engraving. The designs are described in the title page notes as 'decorations by Paul Nash' and they are conceived not only as part of the overall design of the page, to balance the heavy Gothic type-face, but in terms of the book as a whole, the austerity of their design is matched in both colour and mood by the binding on the cover. It is precisely because Nash was responsible for the overall design of the book that his illustrations are not mere visual equivalents for Lermontov's text, instead he sees the book as an object in its own right with the text as a part of the visual harmony rather than a souce of images. The size and format of the illustrations are carefully conceived in terms of the book as a whole, each design being the same size; two vertical images at the beginning and end of the book serve as accents, echoing the shape and design of the binding and two horizontal ones guide the eye through the text. $125.
14. DESIGN 3,1929. 38 x 101.
The head-piece to page 13 of A Song about Tsar Ivan, this is an abstract, geometric design similar in format to the previous one; it too, incorporates the same fine red line as a border. $135.
22. MEADOW GARDEN, c 1928. 89 x 138.
It is tempting to suggest that this design was conceived as part of the Abd-er-Rhaman in Paradise suite. Although no precise textual equivalent can be found, the text is full of descriptions of celestial gardens which could have inspired Nash's design. Its horizontal format is at variance with the three published large illustrations, but it is comparable in size. The rather florid cutting is also in keeping with this group of engravings, the treatment of the waterfall in Paradise is similar to the cutting used here. $170.
23. ABSTRACT COMPOSITION. $105
24. BRYONY AND CONVOLVULUS 38 x 83.
In The Garden of Cyrus Sir Thomas Browne discusses the circular and upward movement of plants which he notes is nowhere better illustrated than in the "great convolvulus." He also notes that the order of the circle is "verified in the large roots of Briony and Mandrakes." Nash illustrates the convolvulus and mandrake on page 104 of this book where the upward spiralling movement of the convolvulus in his illustration is comparable to the movement of a snake. In this illustration the exposed root of the bryony is a reminder of Nash's use of the exposed tree stump in works such as Event on the Downs of 1934. And the similarity between the snake and the convolvulus in The Garden of Cyrus gives a foretaste of Nash's later use of the image of the tree stump as Laocoon, thereby lending the tree stump here an added poignancy of association. $150.
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