Frances Spalding

Art historian and critic Frances Spalding takes a fresh look at English art in the interwar years, which has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity.

Works by artists such as Stanley Spencer and Eric Ravilious have soared in value, and previously overlooked artists such as Winifred Knights and Evelyn Dunbar are gaining attention. Spalding looks at the connections between artists and explores the alliances and shifts in artistic sensibility that fed into creativity. And she looks at the relationship between the emphasis on the ‘real’ or authentic and the romantic feeling that often played a role in shaping artists’ responses to their subject.

Spalding is a leading authority on 20th-century British art. She has written biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper.