This is a sumptuously illustrated portfolio of masterworks currently in the collections of twenty leading Australian and New Zealand galleries.The first six decades of the twentieth century were a time of momentous innovation for British art much of which found itself emigrating to the southern hemisphere."Modern Britain 1900-1960" presents a panoramic survey of 250 masterworks by 93 artists and traces the development of British art over six decades of tremendous change and innovation. Paintings, sculptures, watercolours, graphic arts and works of decorative art are grouped here to trace a remarkable series of cultural stories and visual developments: the elegance and grace of the Edwardian era; the shock of the First World War, the 1920s jazz and speed age; the utopian marriage of art and design in the sleek 1930s along with the clarion call of Surrealism; WWII and the Blitz; and post-war reverence for the beauty of a Britain saved from destruction, coupled with the awareness of new social realities and massive reconstruction.