The Avant-Garde in Interwar England

The Avant-Garde in Interwar England addresses modernism's associations with tradition, commerce, spirituality, and nationalism through an analysis of the assimilation of visual modernism in England between 1910 and 1939. It demonstrates that in England modernism was associated with romantic medievalism and was understood to have direct social, economic, and spiritual benefits to the nation. Saler demonstrates this through an analysis of Frank Pick - prominent businessman, designer of the London Underground, and active medieval modernist - and shows that the attempt to weld organic craftsmanship to industrial design in the London Underground impeded British adoption of twentieth century technical innovations and contributed to Britain's economic decline.