Bonhams 1793 : John Northcote Nash (British, 1893-1977)

John Northcote Nash CBE RA was an English painter, illustrator, and engraver. He was born in London in 1893. Educated at Wellington College, he exhibited from 1913. He served with The Artists Rifles from 1916 to 1918. He worked as an official war artist from 1918. His most famous painting is Over the Top (oil on canvas), now hanging in the Imperial War Museum, London. It is a celebrated image of the attack during which the 1st Battalion Artists Rifles left their trenches and pushed towards Marcoing near Cambrai. Of the eighty men, sixty-eight were killed or wounded during the first few minutes. Nash was one of the twelve spared by the shellfire. From 1924 to 1929 he taught at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (Oxford), and from 1934 to 1940 taught at the Royal College of Art (London), working on wood engravings, lithographs, etc. In World War II he was an official war artist with the rank of Captain in the Royal Marines in 1940. He was promoted Acting Major in 1943 and relinquished his commission in November 1944. He died in 1977 in Colchester

Purchased from Spink and Son Ltd., St. James's, London 1989.

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