Marsh Plants
- Artist: Prunella Clough
- Date: 1954
- Medium: Etching on paper
- Dimensions: image: 150 x 100 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Marsh Plants” by Prunella Clough, created in 1954. It’s an etching on paper, a print the artist produced herself, and it was never put into an edition. Clough was teaching at the Chelsea School of Art when she worked on this group of four prints, a set that also includes “Skull and Pomegranate,” “Kippers,” and “Corrugated Fence.” Because she was exploring a new medium, she turned to simple, quiet subjects – here a still‑life of marsh plants – drawing them directly onto the plates with a hard ground. The plate was later printed specifically for the Tate Gallery at Wimbledon School of Art, a bit of extra work that makes this piece a unique proof. It was purchased in 1984, adding a quiet, natural study to the collection. Clough, who lived from 1919 to 1999, often favored understated, intimate scenes, and this etching captures that quiet reverence for the small, often overlooked details of the natural world.
See it in person
Marsh Plants is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
