Quintessentially English

Paul Nash wooed modernism and leant towards surrealism but he was first and foremost a great landscape artist, says Andrew Lambirth.

- Andrew Lambirth

My interest in Paul Nash (1889–1946) dates back to the last major exhibition of his work at the Tate, in 1975. I have loved his richly mysterious paintings ever since, and whilst acknowledging that not all of his work is equally powerful (he painted rather too many pallid watercolours), I have returned again and again to the best of it with increased appreciation. Thus it was a great privilege to work with the surrealist Eileen Agar (1899–1991) on her autobiography in the mid-1980's, for not only had she known Nash well, but she’d embarked on a passionate affair with him. Assisting Eileen to write her memoirs was an education for me: both in the personal interpretation of art history (she had known Dali and Man Ray and holidayed with Picasso), and in witnessing how the past informed the present for an artist. Eileen had her memorials of Paul (gifts and photos, the love letters he had asked her to destroy – now in the Tate), but although she was prepared to talk about him, she lived very much in the present and was endlessly curious about what was happening now, and especially the next picture she might make.