By the end of John Cecil Stephenson's art school training - first a scholarship to Leeds Art School then to The Royal College of Art - he was in a position to produce still lives, landscapes and portraits in a professional capacity. Like many painters of his generation, who had received similarly conventional instruction, he became a competent teacher, appointed in 1922, as Head of Art at The Northern Polytechnic. In this mould Stephenson might have remained a largely undistinguished painter - but in the early 1930s he found himself at the centre of a group of artists with avant-garde credentials, and his own art underwent a remarkable transformation. By 1934 he was exhibiting groundbreaking works such as Mask (CAT. 7), at the 7 & 5 Society, and in 1937 was a key contributor to the watershed publication and exhibition Circle, where his work was showcased alongside that of luminaries such as Kazimir Malevich, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. What led Stephenson to become, in the words of the celebrated art critic Herbert Read, 'one of the earliest artists in the country to develop a completely abstract style'? Between March 1919 and November 1965, John Cecil Stephenson lived in London at No. 6 Mall Studios, off Tasker Road, Hampstead. As the father figure of what Read christened 'a nest of gentle artists', his next door neighbours included, during the course of the decade leading up to World War II, Barbara Hepworth, John Skeaping, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Such fertile ground was further enriched by visits from artists fleeing persecution - including Piet, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Calder - just a few of the many internationally acclaimed artists who, whilst passing through London, formed part of the art set who congregated around Read's house at No. 3 Mall Studios.

WOW - a collaboration between Liss Llewellyn and the Laing Art Gallery - showcases 38 British women artists working on paper between 1905 and 1975, a transformative period for women in the arts. The featured artists approached the medium in vari ous ways, using traditional as well as innovative techniques to transform paper into beautiful and complex works of art. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of these approaches and highlights the ways in which paper provided artists with a rich arena for artistic innovation. Paper's adaptability allows for a multitude of techniques. Using paper in its traditional role as a support for drawings and prints, or creating collage and sculpture, the fea tured artists responded to the medium's inherent qualities - malleable, smooth and sensuous - to test ideas, express feelings or create a finished work. It is often in the more formative moments that the works in this exhibition most resonate; through these studies we bear witness to the seed of an idea in germination, as in Clare Leigh ton's iconic Southern Harvest, or Evelyn Dunbar's celebrated works for the War Artist's Advisory Committee. Selecting hand-made, mould-made or machine-made papers in various weights, tex tures and tints - depending on their intentions - artists worked with a variety of media from pencil, ink and pastel, to watercolour, tempera and oil, sometimes incorporating extraneous elements such as gold leaf and metallic forms. Working on monumental sheets, such as Winifred Knights' cartoon for St Martin's Altarpiece or tiny pages such as Edith Granger-Taylor's Small Grey Abstract, women's choices were nevertheless some times dictated by circumstance: the propensity of Frances Richards and Tirzah Gar wood - by no means isolated cases - to work on paper on a small scale was in part a result of not having access to a studio. From portraits, landscapes, botanical studies and genre scenes, many of the works in WOW highlight the artist's skill and dexterity in drawing on paper, which was at the core of artistic training and practice. Some artists have used the traditional techniques of etching, screen printing and woodblock to create a diverse range of images. Others highlight the ethereal properties of paper through precise cuts, resulting in elaborate collages combining shapes, patterns and designs, or compact and manipulate paper to create inventive and surprising sculptures. Featuring both famous and lesser-known talents, WOW celebrates the many ways in which women artists expressed themselves through works on, and with paper and highlights their unique contribution to the graphic arts in 20th century Britain.

Which artists in British 20th century art painted religious images? Broadly speaking there seem to have been two categories: The first concerns artists who created religious images when the religious content was in response to a set subject, for example The Deluge in the 1920 Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting, or who responded to a specific commission, for example Thomas Monnington's works for The Ormond Chapel, Bradford, Kippen Church and Stations of the Cross for Brede Church in Hastings. The second category concerns a small minority off artists who were committed believers such as Frank Brangwyn, Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer. No account of 20th Century British art can overlook the numerous works of the period that were essentially "religious" in their content. Art, Faith& Modernity examines this question in Paul Liss' and Alan Powers' essays and demonstrates the wide range of expression in more than 200 colour reproductions.

Originating from Berlin Hagedorn moved to Manchester in 1905 to train in textile production. Having studied art under Adolphe Valette at the local Manchester School ofArt and then The Slade School of Art, his training was completed by a period in1912-13 where, working under Maurice Denis, he absorbed a range of avant-garde styles. On his return to England, he made a consciously pioneering attempt to introduce Modernism into Manchester through his work as both painter and designer, exhibiting at the Manchester Society of Modern Painters, RA, RBA, RSMA and with the NEAC.. He became a British subject in 1914 and served as a Lance-Corporal in the Middlesex Regiment during World War I. In 1925 he received the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Decorative Art, Paris and in 1935 he was elected RBA. He exhibited at a number of leading galleries in London and the provinces, and was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the New English Art Club and the NS. Hagedorn has only been the subject of one exhibition and publication: 'Manchester's First Modernist', a catalogue produced by the Chris Beetles Gallery on the occasion of the retrospective organised in conjunction with the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

This publication examines how artist's portray themselves in self-portraits and how they portray their fellow artists. The artist's studio, models and milieu (friends, family etc) are also considered. Most of Liss Llewellyn's projects in the last twenty five years have involved working directly with artists' studios. Amongst the thousands and thousands of images that until now had lain undisturbed, often hardly seen since the day they were created, some occasionally stand out. Often modest in size and not obviously works of importance; a scrap of paper recording the intense introspective gaze of an artist, or a moment of intimacy suggesting the artist was in love with his subject - be it his or her spouse, model or children. This portrait of an artist is the result of twenty years of collecting and brings together a remarkable group of works which, large or small, minor or major all have in common one quality - the ability to transport the viewer momentarily into the artist's milieu.

GashWhile Gash's oeuvre is full of the period charm that might be expected from the decades that bridge either side of the Edwardian era, his pictures consistently offer something more substantial. His genre paintings bring to mind those of Charles Spencelayh but they display a less predictable and less laboured narrative. As a landscape painter he painted en plein air with relish; he excelled in themedium of pastel. According to his daughter, portraiture was the genre he enjoyed most. His portraits are consistently striking, moving impressively from conversation pieces, such as his elegant and engaging family group of c.1919, to the tradition of Swagger portraits which recall those of Gainsborough, Lawrence and Sargent. For an artist who died before he was 60 it is striking that his most memorable images are amongst his last. The Inseparables, for instance, demonstrates the kind of facility and originality that puts him comfortably on a stage with many of the better known international artists of his period. Indeed, his best work can be viewed as a potent last flowering of the landscape, portrait and genre tradition exemplified by artists such as Sir George Clausen, Stanhope Forbes and Mark Fisher. It is hoped that Walter Bonner Gash: Unsung Edwardian Hero will firmly re-establish Gash's reputation and demonstrate that his talent stands comparison with those of the better known Kettering artists Thomas Cooper Gotch and Sir Alfred East.

Hugh Finney was a painter, draughtsman and teacher who trained initially at Bromley School of Art, where he attended evening classes from 1915, and then at Beckenham School of Art to where he won a trade scholarship in 1918. He studied painting with Amy Katherine Browning and etching with Eric Gill. Around 1927 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, where he studied under William Rothenstein. Horton, Houthuesen, Ososki and Freedman were amongst his friends at the college. In 1929 after graduation he took up a travelling scholarship to Rome returning to teach part-time at Chelsea School of Art under Percy Jowett and later Harold Sandys Williamson. From 1927-1934 he exhibited at the NEAC. In 1935 his painting Mother and Child was acquired by Carlisle Art Gallery. During WW2 Finney worked for the light rescue service of the Civil Defense. After the war he taught part time under Anthony Betts at Reading University and was in charge of life drawing there when he retired in 1970. Although he was reclusive and reluctant to show his work he did exhibit at the RA Summer exhibition (in 1950 and 1954) and the Portrait Society and at The Paris Salon. A large solo exhibition took place at the University of Oxford's Institute of Education in 1964.

The murals that were produced in this country in the twentieth century remain as one of the great inventive achievements in modern British art. Highly original in their approach to design, balancing varying degrees of modernity or tradition, they demonstrate the creative drive of their makers and contain singular expressions of the aesthetic, personal and social concerns that typify the ages from which they come. Some are celebrations of simple human pleasures, perhaps to decorate a refreshment room, an ocean liner or a dining room. Others are intended to be the highest expressions of their art, ambitious allegorical or decorative compositions that like the frescoes of the Renaissance would speak through the ages to later generations. The individuals and committees who commissioned them similarly believed they would both represent the best that Britain had to offer and mark the high accomplishment of contemporary society, elevating the public and private spaces they occupied and inspiring moral purpose.This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition 'British Murals & Decorative Painting 1910-1970' which took place at the Fine Art Society - London (13 February - 9 March 2013) in association with Liss Llewellyn Fine Art. It coincided with the Sansom & Co publication British Murals & Decorative Painting 1920-1960.

Raymond Sheppard showed an early interest in both art and nature and aged 15 enrolled in the Elementary Course of John Hassall's Correspondence Art School where he was complimented on "his remarkable understanding of the correctness of drawing". Sheppard's talent for drawing wildlife gained recognition with the success of the first of his three books for The Studio Publications How to Draw Series. How to Draw Birds, published in 1940, not only ran to four reprints during WW2 but a further two reprints afterwards in 1948 and 1955 - a remarkable feat for a 27 year old artist. This not only provided Sheppard with a secure, if modest, financial income but put him on a stage alongside the highly regarded draughtsman of this genre John Skeaping (How to Draw Horses) and C.F. Tunnicliffe (How to Draw Farm Animals) both of whom were 12 years his senior. In parallel to his work as an illustrator of wildlife, Sheppard, along with Jack Merriott as President, became a founding member of the Wapping Group. Limited to 25 members, The Wappers, as they were known, comprised artists from the Langham Sketching Club, (which did not meet in the summer months,) who convened along the river between Westminster and Gravesend, in the East End of London, to paint scenes along the Thames. If Raymond Sheppard's drawings are to been seen as something more than illustrations the key is here: "An outlook at once poetic and intimate, whose technique was developed from a habit of contemplation".

It is rare for a creative artist to work in the privacy of his garden shed, in a challenging medium, and almost entirely for his own pleasure, but such a one was the slate-carver, John McKenzie. His day job was working as a steward in the Petty Officers' Mess aboard H.M.S. Condor, the Fleet Air Arm Training School at Arbroath, Angus, on the east coast of Scotland. McKenzie's work is totally unpretentious, but it reveals a cultivated familiarity with the carvings of ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia, as well as classical mythology, suggesting that as a boy he had haunted Kelvingrove Art Gallery - and may have continued to do so - as well the public libraries of Glasgow and Arbroath. A list of the hundred and twelve carvings that were still in his possession at the time of his death exists, but forty years on we will never know what books he had on his shelves, what postcards, photographs and cuttings from the local paper, what references he used. John McKenzie may have worked in solitude but it is clear that he did not work in isolation.

Victor Hume Moody created timeless images of an Arcadian idyll at a time when most artists had turned their backs on the classical tradition. The centuries old heritage of Western art was too inspiring and too valuable for him to simply abandon. Over a working life of nearly 70 years he tirelessly researched and worked to revive traditional painting techniques. At the same time he created a unique fusion of classical figure composition and the pastoral English landscape. Since Victor Moody died his work has been widely seen and his reputation has steadily risen. The Harris Museum in Preston held a retrospective exhibition, 'The Last Classicist', in 1992 and more recently his work featured in the 2010 exhibition 'Counterpoint - Modern Realism 1910-1950' held at the Fine Art Society. The dispersal of works from the Estate of the artist's daughter, which has made this present catalogue possible, represents a further important moment in the rehabiliation of Victor Moody's reputation. It is hoped that his work will, as a result, continue to become more widely seen and better understood.

Ziegler was born in London in 1903 and studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He subsequently (from 1927 to 1930) studied at the Royal College of Art under William Rothenstein, whom he recalled as 'a lively and inspiring Principal'. The late 1920s was a rich period to attend the RCA : the likes of Bawden, Ravilious, Mahoney, Sorrell, Bliss and Freedman had already completed their formative studies and, in what was to prove the golden age of the Royal College of Art, their influence can be seen in Ziegler's early work. Later on the influence of his fellow Jewish artists - Joseph Herman, Bernard Meninksy, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Emmanuel Levy and Fred Ulhman, all of whom he empathised with and wrote about with enthusiasm, came increasingly to the fore. After leaving the RCA Ziegler taught drawing and painting at St. Martin's School of Art (where he was a visiting instructor for Figure Drawing and Painting) and Art History at Morley College in London and for the Worker's Educational Association. His work was widely reproduced in publications including Illustrated London News, Country Life, Architectural Review, Mater Builder, Architecture Illustrated, Studio Artist, Courier, London Mercury, Leader, Bookman and The Artist. His Royal Academy exhibits (which between 1931 and 1970 numbered 12) were mostly of his locality: Chelsea in the 1930s, Hendon and Hertfordshire in the 1940s and Hampstead from the 1950s onwards.