The Harris has a small but notable collection of Modern British art, including paintings by Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer, Matthew Smith, Ivon Hitchens, David Bomberg, and Lucian Freud.

After serving in the First World War, Nash suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with ‘war strain’. To recuperate, he and his wife rented a cottage at Dymchurch on the Kent coast.

His experiences during the war led him to consider the coast line as a conflict between the sea and land. The geometric lines reflect Nash’s early experiments with abstraction, and suggest a coordinated battle between the sea and the man-made defenses built to protect the land from invasion.