Nash, Nevinson, Spencer, Gertler, Carrington, Bomberg: A Crisis of Brilliance, 1908-1922

David Bomberg, Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson and Stanley Spencer — six of the most important and distinctive British artists of the twentieth century — had all been students together at the Slade School of Art in London. They formed part of what their drawing teacher, Henry Tonks, described as the school's last crisis of brilliance. For young British artists working in the years immediately before the Great War it was an exciting and demanding time as various Modernist movements fought for precedence: Primitivism, Futurism, Cubism, Vorticism and Expressionism. Each of the six artists found their own distinctive response. David Boyd Haycock's group biography, A Crisis of Brilliance, was published to much acclaim in 2009. Jenny Uglow wrote in her review in the Guardian, We should call for a joint exhibition of [their] work, to complement the moving portrayal of their lives in this engrossing and enjoyable book. This book marks the fulfillment of that wish. It features Haycock's selection of 70 works, ranging from their early student drawings, watercolours and oil paintings, to the first great mature works that they made during and immediately after the Great War of 1914-18.