Paul Nash was a British landscape painter, surrealist and war artist

War artist

A war artist depicts some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how "war shapes lives." War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.- Definition and context:A...

, as well as a book-illustrator, writer and designer of applied art. He was the older brother of the artist John Nash

John Nash (artist)

John Northcote Nash CBE RA was a British painter of landscape and still-life, wood-engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works.-Biography:...

.
The son of a successful lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and a mentally unstable mother who died in a mental asylum in 1910, Nash was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on 11 May 1889. He was educated at St Paul's School, and originally intended for a career in the Navy, like his maternal grandfather.