When the story of modern art is told, British artists are mentioned infrequently or not at all. In this book, distinguished art historians attempt to explain the marginal position of British modern art by examining the development of the London art world-its institutions and individual artists-over the past two centuries.

Chapters discuss artists as diverse as William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, W.P. Frith, Walter Sickert, and Henry Moore and also describe academies, public exhibitions, and commercial galleries throughout the era. Introduced by David Solkin, the volume consists of contributions from Caroline Arscott, Ann Bermingham, John Brewer, Marilyn Butler, Julie Codell, Peter Funnell, John Gage, Charles Harrison, Andrew Hemingway, Ludmilla Jordanova, Ronald Paulson, Martin Postle, and Stella Tillyard.

This volume is the first of a new serial publication, Studies in British Art, published for the Yale Center for British Art and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.