(Text from Frances Carey & Antony Griffiths, ‘Avant-Garde British Printmaking 1914-1960’, BMP, 1990)

This print is closely related to another of the same year entitled ‘Design of Flowers’, of which it seems to be an abstract derivation.

In 1928 an exhibition of almost the entire oeuvre of Nash in wood-engraving was held at the Leicester Galleries, and coincided with the publication of a catalogue of them by John Gould Fletcher in ‘Print Collector’s Quarterly’. All the prints shown here were available for 2 guineas each. The exhibition was not a success, and marked a turning-point in Nash’s career: after this he made hardly any more wood-engravings.

In an article entitled ‘Woodcut patterns’ published in ‘The Woodcut, an Annual’ (edited by Herbert Furst) in 1927, Nash wrote of wood-engraving:”… there is always the dangerous seduction of skilfulness to be taken into account. Hitherto this has been a temptation mainly for the craftsman. Today it is likely to prove the artist’s snare. Because, as an engraver, I fear such a danger invading the art I practise, I have become lately more interested in woodcut patterns than in woodcut pictures. It is always a relief to be rid of the responsibility of representation . . . Wood seems to yield to the evolution of an abstract design or a decorative arabesque as stone excites the sculptor to the creation of pure form. For it is the glyptic character of engraving on wood which is its peculiar charm”.

Postan, Alexander. The Complete Graphic Work of Paul Nash. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973. cat. no. W.76.
Greenwood, Jeremy. The Wood-Engravings of Paul Nash. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Wood Lea Press, 1997. cat no. G 75.