Signed, scratched into lower right with a little paint: "PN [monogram]"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1985.20.1
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
architectural subject | still life | restaurant | cityscape | amphora | abstract art | reflection | figure | souvenir | ceramic | bridge (built work) | river
Associated Places:
Arno | Toscana | Florence | Italy | Ponte Vecchio
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)20th Century Paintings and Sculpture (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-01-27 - 2000-04-30)
Publications:
Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, pp. 154, 157, pl. 187, NJ18 N17 A12 C38 (YCBA)Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Paul Nash, paintings and watercolours [exhibition, Tate Gallery, 12 November - 28 December 1975]. , Tate Publishing, London, 1975, p. 76, no. 116, NJ18 N17 T37 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Paul Nash was born in London but raised in Buckinghamshire, where he developed a passion for landscape. He trained at the Slade School, citing J. M. W. Turner and William Blake as his influences. Wounded in the First World War, Nash was appointed one of the official war artists. His surreal, often bleak vision achieved international recognition. In the 1920s, Nash produced a series of compositions each dominated by a single, mysterious object. Souvenir of Florence depicts a vast amphora (a container for wine), which Nash had sketched in Florence in 1925. Four years later, it floats above the river Arno, with the Ponte Vecchio in the background. A faceless man and woman dining in a restaurant are reflected in its polished surface. While the amphora and the restaurant suggest sensory pleasures, the distance between the couple and the urn-like quality of the amphora evoke a melancholy quality, suggestive of isolation and death. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016