Paul Nash British, 1889-1946
Dyke by the Road , 1922
wood engraving
15.5 x 20.5cm
Copyright The Artist
Provenance
signed and dated 'Paul Nash/1922' in ink l.r., inscribed with title l.l., inscribed 'Joanlet from Paul/Dymchurch 1922' u.l., and 'special proof' u.r.Exhibitions
A note from the vendor:My mother was the youngest daughter of Arthur and Harriet Miles of Sellindge near Romney Marsh in Kent. My grandfather, Arthur Miles, who farmed and bred horses, allowed my mother, then aged sixteen, to drive her pony and trap round the neighbouring countryside. One day in 1921, visiting friends in Dymchurch, my mother met Paul Nash and his wife Margaret (Bunty) who had rented a cottage there.
Nash, while still recovering from a serious illness, was designing scenes for two plays by his friend Gordon Bottomley ('King Lear's Wife' and 'Gruach') and he asked my mother to help him build the models. A pin-hole camera was used to take photographs, and Nash gave my mother a small hand-made album decorated and inscribed 'Photographs of Two Scene Models designed and built by Paul Nash with the assistance of Joan Adeline Miles', which I still have.
In 1922, Nash gave my mother his pen and wash drawing 'The Shore', 1922, inscribed to her on the mount, and two 'special proofs' of two of his wood engravings, 'Dyke by the Road', 1922' and 'The Bay', 1922, inscribed to her on the margins.