Signed and dated in blue paint, lower right: "C.R.W. Nevinson. | 1917."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1997.10
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
rough | ocean | marine art | water | movement | foam | symbolism | texture | World War, 1914-1918 | world war | war | waves (natural events)
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Behold the Sea (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-06-14 - 2003-09-07)Revisiting Traditions [BAC 20th century painting & sculpture] (Yale Center for British Art, 2002-04-30 - 2005-05-18)Bloomsbury Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-05-20 - 2000-09-03)C. R. W. Nevinson (Imperial War Museum, 1999-10-28 - 2000-01-30)C. R. W. Nevinson (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-02-25 - 2000-05-07)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)
Publications:
Behold, the sea itself, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2003, verso of cover, V 1308 (YCBA)Jonathan Black, C.R.W. Nevinson : the complete prints, Lund Humphries, Burlington, 2014, p. 120, NJ18.N397 A12 B53 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA)C.R.W. Nevinson, 1889-1946, retrospective exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints. , Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge, 1988, p. 33, no. 44, NJ18 N397 A12 1988 (YCBA)Catalogue of an exhibition of paintings and water-colours by C. R. W. Nevinson, Ernest Brown & Phillips, Leicester Galleries, London, 1928, p. 8, No. 30, Not at YaleMatthew Hargraves, "Yale Center for British Art joins Art UK", ArtUK, 24 June 2019, https://artuk.org/discover/stories/yale-center-for-british-art-joins-art-ukRichard Ingleby, C.R.W. Nevinson, the twentieth century , Merrell Holberton, London, 1999, p. 31, pl. 74, NJ18 N397 C2 1999 (YCBA)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 188, no. 78, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (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)
Gallery Label:
Christopher Nevinson served in the Friends Ambulance Unit of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War and as an official war artist. His unsentimental representations of active conflict on the Western Front made a great impression on the British public when first exhibited in late 1916. According to one critic, he was the first artist to offer a “really profound and pictorial solution to the emotions aroused by the War.” Despite initial enthusiasm for mechanized conflict—fostered by his interest in Italian futurism—Nevinson was left severely traumatized by his experiences. It was during one of several periods of recuperation in St. Ives that he painted The Wave. On the one hand, this heavily stylized seascape can be seen as an homage to the great Japanese printmaker Hokusai; on the other hand, it is an oblique reflection on the engulfing destructive power of the war. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016