Paul NashTotes Meer (Dead Sea) 1940-1

This painting, the title of which is German for ‘dead sea’, was inspired by a dump of wrecked aircraft at Cowley in Oxfordshire. Nash based the image on photographs he took there, a few of which are on display nearby.The artist described the sight: ‘The thing looked to me suddenly, like a great inundating sea ... the breakers rearing up and crashing on the plain. And then, no: nothing moves, it is not water or even ice, it is something static and dead.’