From the end of World War II through the 1970s, a wave of world-class artists made their mark in Britain, and—eluding easy classification—this "School of London" had a diverse roster encompassing Francis Bacon's startling portraiture and Bridget Riley's color-field abstraction. Suggesting that what they held in common was a belief in the relevance of painting, Martin Gayford traces their influences and finds further similarities among these artists' works and lives. Shown in 100 color and black and white illustrations, here too are images by Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj, Gillian Ayres, Bridget Riley, David Hockney, and Patrick Caulfield.