By 1918 St Ives had a long tradition as an artists' community. It took as its standard the Royal Academy, which retained great popular appeal, but was neither forward-looking nor progressive. In 1920 it became the permanent home of one of the great innovators of the twentieth century, the potter Bernard Leach. At the outbreak of the Second World War it provided shelter for a small group of the most progressive painters and sculptors, including notably Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, already leaders in the advanced art movements of the 1930s, and committed to the principle of abstraction....