Art lovers in Somerset are in for a rare treat as a Paul Nash painting which has not been seen in public for 70 years, goes on show at Black Swan Arts in Frome.
‘Pond in the Fields’, which Nash painted in 1927, is appearing as part of the art centre’s prestigious ‘The Arborealists and Guests’ exhibition, which opens on 21st July and continues until 2nd September.
The oil painting was a private commission and has remained in a family collection since the 1920s. It has only been shown in public on four previous occasions; at Leicester Gallery in 1928, Venice in 1938, the National Gallery in 1940 and the Tate Gallery in 1948.
Paul Nash (1889–1946) is most well-known for his powerful mudscapes of Passchendaele and the trenches (he covered both world wars as an official war artist). However, he is also one of the most important British landscape artists of the twentieth century.
Pond in the Fields shows a group of trees clustered around a dark pond. It features in a book which Nash had been preparing in the two years prior to his death – Paul Nash: Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations, edited by Margot Eates – which was published posthumously in 1948 by Lund Humphries.
Trees appeared in Nash’s work throughout his life – from his early watercolours of a line of pollarded elms at the bottom of the family garden in Buckinghamshire, to the ragged stumps of lifeless trees in his war commissions and in his later paintings of Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire.
‘The Arborealists and Guests’ is a major exhibition of trees in contemporary art, featuring work by 43 arborealists and six guest artists. The show will be open from Monday to Saturday, 10am–4pm. Entry is £3, £5 for 2, under 18s free. For more information visit www.blackswan.org.uk.
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