Radical Women tells an original story of British modernism from the perspective of Jessica Dismorr's career, along with the women artists - some famous, some lesser-known - she worked and exhibited with.

The work of Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939) has been described as encapsulating 'the stylistic developments of twentieth-century British Art', and her oeuvre certainly encompasses some of its most exciting moments - from Rhythm in the early 1910s, through Vorticism, towards post-war modernist figuration and finally into the abstraction she shared with radical political artists groups in the 1930s. Within this period of intense creativity, which extended beyond art to literary and design accomplishments too, Dismorr was privileged to work and exhibit alongside some of the most exciting female artists of the time, including Barbara Hepworth and Winifred Nicholson, to lesser-known figures such as Dorothy Shakespear, Anne Estelle Rice and Helen Saunders. Bringing a web of fascinating connections to light for the first time, this publication provides a fresh interpretation of a pioneering period and the role women played within it.

'There is much to praise about Radical Women: Jessica Dismorr and her Contemporaries, and there is not a little to regret. […] Helps us to understand Dismorr as never before' – Michael Glover, Hyperallergic

'a compelling story in a fluid prose accessible to both general and specialized audiences [...] an excellent addition to any library wishing to strengthen their holdings on female artists and modernist movements.' – Margot McIlwain Nishimura, Dean of Libraries, Rhode Island School of Design, ARLISNA

Alicia Foster is an art historian and novelist. Awarded her PhD in history of art from the University of Manchester, her books include Tate Women Artists (2004) and Warpaint (2013).