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Provenance: Margaret Nash
Her Sale, Sotheby's London, 6th April 1960, lot 87 (as The Woodshed, Oxenbridge Cottage, Iden), where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill for £500.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

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Exhibited: Paris, Beaux-Arts Gallery, International Surrealist Exhibition, January 1938, cat. no.153;
London, Leicester Galleries, New Paintings by Paul Nash, May 1938, cat. no.33, illustrated;
Venice, XXI Biennale, June 1938, cat. no.15 (as Catasta di Legna ad Iden);
London, Arthur Tooth and Sons, Paintings and Watercolours by Paul Nash, December 1938, cat. no.8;
London, London Museum, New Movements in Art, Contemporary Work in England, March 1942, cat. no.48;
London, Leicester Art Gallery, New Movements in Art, May 1942, cat. no.40;
London, Redfern Gallery, Paul Nash, 1944, cat. no.24;
Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery, Paintings, Drawings and Designs by Paul Nash, June 1945, cat. no.1;
Cape Town, South Africa, British Council, Contemporary British Paintings and Drawings, 1st January 1947 - 30th October 1948, cat. no.69 (as Two Serpents);
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part I - section 3) cat. no.10 (as The Woodpile);
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.121 (as Snakes in the Woodpile).

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Literature: ART NEWS, September 1938, illustrated p.69;
Margot Eates, Paul Nash: 1889-1946, Newgate Press Ltd, London, 1973, p.42 (as The Two Serpents);
Andrew Causey, Paul Nash, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, cat. no.646, p.407, illustrated.

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Notes: Nash frequently returned to paintings several years after they had been initially painted, and often exhibited, the re-workings adding subtle shades of meaning and idea to the original concept. Begun in 1929, The Two Serpents seems to be just such a painting. The initial design seems to relate it to the small group of paintings of that year that took their starting point from the garden of the Nash's home at Iden in Sussex, the most well-known being Landscape at Iden (Tate, London) and Month of March (fig. 3, Private Collection), in which we see the artist presenting seemingly idyllic images that unfold to leave the viewer with a good deal of questions. Indeed, even the briefest perusal of the literature that discusses Landscape at Iden will demonstrate the variety of readings of this teasingly simple yet powerful painting.

Nash's father, to whom he was extremely close, died in February 1929, and the event hit hard. Since the early death of his mother, the relationship between the two had been very strong, and the most potent image of this loss was presented by the artist in February (Private Collection), where a tree stump into which a hedger's billhook is stuck stands alone in an expansive landscape. Both Landscape at Iden and Month of March carry within them a very definite sense of emptiness, the neatness of the landscape, garden, railings and stacked wood feeling almost like the obsessive tidying of someone desperate to keep busy in order not to have to face some other subject.

The Two Serpents shares some of that same orderliness, but it is altogether a more claustrophobic image, the view into the boiler-house almost entirely obscuring the sliver of sky beyond, and the open slatted gate and cut-off viewpoint suggesting a darker space within. The chimney of the boiler stands thin and black right down the central line of the painting, the corrugated iron roof and wooden screening giving an impermanent, ramshackle feel to the place. Only the neatly stacked woodpile suggests that anyone has spent more than just a few moments here. The unusual arched top to the painting gives an almost altarpiece-like effect, and with the strong vertical of the stove-pipe and the horizontal of the roof edge does hint at a composition not unlike a crucifixion, perhaps deepening the intensity of feeling in the painting.

In both Landscape at Iden and Month of March the shadows within the painting fall long towards us, the bright blue skies and high clouds suggesting a crisp spring day. In The Two Serpents, the position is reversed, the light falling from behind us to cross the painting, the shadows of a tree unseen behind to our left waving across the roof of the boilerhouse. The emphasis of the shadows and light lead us into the opening before us but right across the doorway lies a snake. Apparently having come from the woodpile, it is uncertain if it is still moving or is raised in an attitude of defence, but whichever posture is being adopted will clearly give us thought before we move further. The snake, so replete with symbolism across all cultures, seems here to be both barrier and guardian.

In the distant sky we see above the building another snake appears, apparently added later by Nash circa 1937-8. This strange repetition of the earthbound snake just before us seems uncomfortably prescient of the vapour trails that would wind across the skies of many of Nash's paintings of the aerial combat of WWII, the most famous being Battle of Britain (Imperial War Museum, London).

There is a further painting on the reverse of this canvas which appears to be an unfinished alternative version of Circle of the Monoliths (1938, Leeds City Art Gallery).