Book excerpt: This lavishly illustrated book is both a detailed history of the development of modern art in England in the early twentieth century and a study of the evolution of the concept of modernism among English artists, critics, and theorists. Charles Harrison explores the two main phases of modern art activity during the period: the years before and during the First World War, when the principal factions were Sickert's Camden Town Group, the English Post-Impressionists, and the Vorticists; and the 1930s, when a new avant garde assembled in response to recent developments in European art, only to divide into groupings of abstract artists, Surrealists, and Realists. Harrison discusses the artists of the period, the most important individual works, and the writings of the critics. His book is a major contribution to knowledge about the art and theory of modernism.