Paul Nash’s *Genesis* (1924) — The Public Domain Review

In addition to Nash’s financial struggles, he experienced a series of grave personal misfortunes in the years immediately following the war. In 1921, he witnessed his father collapse from a heart attack. The father lived, but Nash slipped into a coma for more than a week, which his doctor attributed to emotional shock. (Nash had earlier attended the deathbed of his mother, who died of anorexia before the war.) His wife, Maragaret Odeh or “Bunty”, suffered a dire miscarriage that resulted in permanent fertility loss, and Nash continued to battle severe asthma, the same disease that eventually killed him. Also in 1921, a good friend, the artist and author Claud Lovat Fraser, came for a visit, fell seriously ill, and suddenly died. Before and after and during all this, Nash endured the symptoms of what is now called PTSD, his mind constantly flashing a series of ghastly images.