The book examines the impact of modernism on the work of three women artists - Vanessa Bell (b. 1879), Gwen John (b. 1876) and Laura Knight (b. 1877) - whose training and early artistic careers were rooted in the Victorian tradition. The book ranges them alongside each other to examine and compare their development, their work and the positions they took in the crucial years of their careers between 1890 and 1920. In the case of female artists, whose position had been hard-won over the previous half-century, this is as yet a more or less unexplored area as the question of modernity is perpetuated as 'men's business'.<BR>Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight were faced with this question and their reactions demonstrate the spectrum of British artists tackling this issue. Modernity - and Modernism - had different interest for these three painters, whose responses to the twentieth-century agenda varied; indeed, they were affected by the opportunities afforded by their class and milieu as much as by their gender.<BR>Gerrish Nunn casts new light on each artist, putting their works into a comparative context and other neglected works into a critical conversation which illuminates women's participation in the important question of how British art negotiated the challenge posed by Post-Impressionism, abstraction, significant form and the demise of narrative art at the beginning of the twentieth century.