The Collection
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| Artist / Photographer | Paul Nash (1889-1946) |
| Title | Event on the Downs |
| Date | 1934 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Provenance | Redfern Gallery; Clare Neilson; Redfern Gallery; purchased from Leicester Galleries, July 1969 |
| Exhibition | Venice 1938; "Paul Nash", Tate Gallery 11-12/1975 & Arts Council Tour (City Art Gallery, Plymouth, The Minories, Colchester, Bradford City Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery 1-5/1976); "Paul Nash", York City Art Gallery 26/4-26/5/1980, Blond Fine Art, 33 Sackville Street, London, 5 /6-19/7/1980, The Minories, Colchester 22/7-18/8/1980 ;GAC Exhibition, Fine Art Society, London, 8/1981; "Modern Britain 1929-39", Design Museum, London 20/1-6/6/1999; "Paul Nash: Modern Painter, Ancient Landscape", Tate Liverpool 23/7 -19/10 2003; "An Aside" (Arts Council Touring Exhibition), Camden Arts Centre, London, 18/2-1/5 2005 & Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh 14/5-17/7 2005; "The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art", Tate St. Ives 10/10/2009-10/01/2010; "Paul Nash: The Elements", Dulwich Picture Gallery 10/02 - 9/5/2010; ''Court on Canvas'' Barber Institute, Birmingham 27/5-18/9/2011. |
| Dimensions | height: 51.00 cm, width: 61.00 cm |
| Inscription | bl: Paul Nash |
| Acquisition | Purchased from Leicester Galleries, July 1969 |
| Location | UK, London, Department for Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street |
| GAC number | 8536 |
Other works by this artist
 | Dymchurch | Pencil and watercolour on paper 1923 GAC 12222 |
 | Dead Tree, Romney Marsh | Black and white photograph 1930-4; published 1978 GAC 14222 |
 | Chain and Net, Meadle, Berkshire | Black and white photograph published 1978 GAC 14223 |
 | Bench Seats, Swanage | Black and white photograph 1935-1936; published 1978 GAC 14224 |
 | Atlantic Voyage | Black and white photograph 1931; published 1978 GAC 14225 |
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'Event on the Downs' depicts the view from Whitecliff Farm on Ballard Down, near Swanage in Dorset, where Nash and his wife stayed between October 1934 and February 1935. It is, however, more than a simple landscape. Indications of its meaning can be found in the incongruous placement of three motifs which are recurrent in Nash's art of this time: the tennis ball, the tree stump and the cloud.
Nash was then interested in Chinese art and philosophy, and the tennis ball should be read as an equivalent for the yin-yang symbol. The black (active, masculine) part, subtly indicated here by a shadow, is thought to activate the body in life along with the white (passive, feminine) part. At the point of death, the two are thought to separate. The masculine element rises into the sky, represented here by the cloud, while the feminine element sinks into the earth, represented by the tree stump, a romantic symbol of death. Like yin and yang, the tree stump and cloud echo each other in shape, and the cloud seems as solid looking as the chalky cliffs beneath it. Paul Nash had been preoccupied with issues of mortality since the death of his father in 1929, and this is one of a number of works to deal with the theme. Nash was influenced by Surrealism from the late 1920s but considered his approach to be an individualistic one, rather than one directly motivated by surrealist manifestos.
Adapted from Mary Beal, 'Paul Nash's "Event on the Downs" reconsidered', 'Burlington Magazine' November 1989.
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London Group
 | Ripe Corn | Oil on canvas 1946 GAC 284 |
 | Autumn Landscape | Oil on canvas 1942 GAC 297 |
 | Iken, Suffolk | Oil on canvas 1934 GAC 300 |
 | South Mill | Oil on canvas 1945 GAC 302 |
 | Bosham Creek | Oil on canvas on board GAC 1871 |
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Born in Kensington, London, Paul Nash studied at the Slade School of Art (1910–11). He served with the Artists’ Rifles during the First World War and in 1917 he was appointed an Official War Artist, acclaimed for his paintings of shattered landscapes in France and Flanders. In the 1920s Nash moved to Rye, Sussex, painting bleak and ominous landscapes of the area. He began travelling abroad, visiting France regularly. In 1931 he visited New York, Washington and Pittsburgh. He founded the Unit One group in 1933 and participated in the ‘International Surrealist Exhibition’ (London, 1936). In the Second World War Nash became an Official War artist to the Air Ministry and Ministry of Information. He died in Hampshire in 1946.