Join us to discover Oxford and Oxfordshire through the eyes of Paul Nash: painter, writer, photographer and designer. How did the place – its landmarks, sites, buildings, culture, people - inspire all of his last major works (1939-1946)?
Paul Nash (1889-1946) was one of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. A pioneering modernist, in the 1930s he became a key member of the British Surrealist movement. His work embraced oil and watercolour painting, wood engraving, commercial design, photography and writing.
‘People are always interested by anything about Oxford,’ he wrote in 1913, two years after leaving the Slade School of Art. ‘I am quite determined, say in the spring, to begin a series of [prints and drawings]…What a chance to reveal something of that wonderful place Oxford, the poetry of it.’
With the coming of the Great War in 1914, that series never happened. But Oxford would play an important part in Nash’s life. On the outbreak of World War Two, he and his wife Margaret left London and moved to Oxford. In July 1940 they rented a ground floor flat at 106 Banbury Road. It would be Nash’s home until his death in 1946. All his last major works were painted here in Oxford.
On the course we will trace Nash’s time in Oxford and explore how the city inspired his art in his final years.
This course is part of the Oxford University Summer School for Adults (OUSSA) programme.