Marching at Night

Paul Nash was sent to Ypres with the Artists’ Rifles in March 1917 but after only three months he fell into a trench and broke a rib. Sent home to recuperate, he developed a series of sketches first made on the front line. This work was very well received and he was immediately recruited as an official war artist. In November 1917 he returned to the front and made a series of powerful oil paintings. After the war, Nash became lost, describing himself as ‘a war artist without a war’.