Paul Nash

Grotto in the Snow

1939

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In Tate St Ives

Modern Art and St Ives: Paris, London and St Ives 1920–1940

Artist: Paul Nash 1889–1946
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 718 × 489 mm
frame: 856 × 629 × 84 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1940
Reference: N05254

Catalogue entry

N05254 GROTTO IN THE SNOW 1939

Inscr. ‘Paul Nash’ c.r.
Canvas, 28 1/4×19 1/4 (72×49).
Purchased from the artist (Knapping Fund) 1940.
Exh: Tate Gallery, March–May 1948 (51).
Lit: Bertram, 1955, p.233.
Repr: Read, 1944, pl.23 (in colour).

Painted in the garden of the artist's house, 3 Eldon Road, Hampstead. Bertram sees the grotto as symbolizing a refuge.

A version in watercolour, 22×15 in., belongs to Mrs James Fell and was exhibited at Leeds, 1943 (62). Two other watercolours of the grotto, not specified as snow scenes, were exhibited at the Leicester Galleries, May–June 1938 (21 and 29; see Eates, 1948, p.55), but both the oil painting and Mrs Fell's watercolour are dated 1939 on the photographs in the Nash Collection at the V. & A.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II