Don’t Forget the Diver

‘Don’t Forget the Diver’, 1942 is a mixed medium piece, compromising of pencil, pen and ink with a newspaper collage. The painting depicts a mine with a collage image of a skull on its centre. The background is dominated by a dramatic grey sky. The title is probably a reference to the catchphrase of the popular World War II radio show ITMA.

Paul Nash was an official war artist in both World Wars. In the First World War he was in active service and his experiences changed his interpretation of landscape. In 1923 he suffered a breakdown but recovered and settled at Dymchurch on the Kent coast. From 1929 onwards he produced photographic collages or ‘object poems’ in which, as here, land or seascapes are viewed through a foreground still-life. These compositions contain odd or familiar objects arranged to suggest other levels of meaning, likely inspired by Nash’s role in the surrealist movement which emerged after the First World War.

As a full-time salaried war artist for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, Nash produced work for the RAF and Air Ministry between 1940 and 1944. The work he produced during this period was extremely modernist and abstract, including some of his most famous paintings ‘Totes Meer’ and ‘Battle of Britain’.