About

British Abstract art emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. The privations of six years of war had taken their toll upon Europe and, as the mist of the devastation began to clear, London and its neighbouring capitals were left with an urgency to economically, politically and physically rebuild. A gloomy realism had taken hold in Britain and the avant-garde revolutionary practices that had flourished in pre-war Paris found new fertile ground across the Atlantic, as New York became the new centre for modern art.

This new creative climate heralded the dramatic rise of the New York …