The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars A Times Best Art Book of 2022

'Superb . Spalding also uses her persuasive narrative to highlight the role of women artists in the period. As the biographer of a cluster of Bloomsbury figures, she unsurprisingly gives Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell full measure, but also lesser-known figures such as the single-minded New Zealander Frances Hodgkins, Evelyn Dunbar and Winifred Knights' - Michael Prodger, Sunday Times 'Spaldings prose is as clear as a Ravilious greenhouse, her thoughts as orderly as a Ben Nicholson white relief. No art-world waffle whatsoever. Hurrah. This book deserves to go into many editions' - Laura Freeman, Best Art Books of the Year, The Times '[Spalding] unravels the complexities of English art between the wars with clarity and confidence, moving back and forth in time, and between artists, writers, critics, curators and collectors Throughout, she illuminates what she neatly describes as the recurrent tension in this period between a precarious stasis on the one hand and, on the other, a yearning for rapid change The period between the wars was a varied and important stage in the development of British art. Spalding shows us how and why' - Literary Review 'Frances Spalding's beautifully illustrated history reveals the hidden undercurrents that electrified the work of 1920s and 1930s artists The author combines the august and measured commentary of the distinguished art historian with a gumshoes curiosity This is a weighty and beautifully illustrated addition to the scholarship of its period' - Stephen Smith, Financial Times 'The writing is thorough and the arguments convincing, with plenty of examples, analyses and histories. The book is also generously illustrated, and Thames & Hudson again pull off their trick of getting good colour reproduction on book paper' - Artbookreview 'Enjoyable ... There's much to be learnt from Spalding's engaging study of a complex period' - Andrew Lambirth, The Spectator 'The author has compressed a deluge of material into 384 critically lucid and crucially well illustrated pages. She is expert in discerning trends and connections between hundreds of human strands all this perceptive linkage seems only to emphasise the fundamental individuality of some of the most interesting English artists between the wars' - Country Life 'A great page-turner, then, but also a fine reference book, which will, undoubtedly, be frequently pulled off the shelf for information and inspiration about that variegated array of artists real and romantic whose imagination lit up what is nowadays routinely considered to be the richest period in British art history' - British Art Fair News 'Veteran biographer Frances Spalding, known for her insightful books on the early British Modernists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry, turns her penetrating gaze on the interwar years' - Christies 'Delectable ... the joy and intense interest of this book will come courtesy of the attention given by its scholarly but always readable author to less well-known names' - Rachel Cooke, Guardian 'Paul Nash, Gwen John, Henry Moore, Eric Ravilious, Ben Nicholson and Stanley Spencer all feature in this fresh and enlightening new look at English art between 1918 and 1939, which travels from modernism to English pastoral and embraces a host of lesser male and female figures in its broad and highly assured sweep' - Sunday Times 'This amply illustrated volume is a gripping read whether for new collectors looking for tips, art lover or expert' - Rachel Billington, The Tablet 'Figures such as Ravilious, Knights, Dunbar, Nash and Spencer re-interpreted Britain and its landscape for a new world, and this thoughtful and generously illustrated book charts their progress as well as the environment and society they sought to represent' - The Artist 'Spalding bring

Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and leading authority on 20th-century British art. Her books include acclaimed biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper, as well as a biography of the poet Stevie Smith. She is Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art. In 2005 she was made a CBE for Services to Literature.

Introduction 1. Pitiless Realism 2. Resistance and Innovation 3. On the Move 4. Landscape and Places of the Mind 5. Beginning Again 6. What ho, Giotto 7. Expanding the Western European Tradition 8. Make It Real 9. Revivalism 10. Modern Art in a Philistine World 11. The Austere, the Violent or the Strange 12. The Spanish Civil War and Mondrian in London