This anthology can be seen as a case-study, providing both a historical account of the outcome of the National Gallery's purchase of the painting and an understanding of why the gallery's actions provoked such strong opinions and feelings.

Bruce Barber is an associate professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He is an artist and cultural historian, and author of Reading Rooms and Modern Art, Cartoons, Comics and Class Conflict: Cultural Hegemony and the Contest of Power.Guilbaut Serge :

Serge Guilbaut is a professor in the Department of Fine arts at the University of British Columbia. He is editor of Modernism and Modernity and Reconstructing Modernism, and is the author of How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art and Voir, Ne pas voir, Faut voir.O'Brian John :

John O'Brian teraches Art History at the University of British Columbia. He is author of David Milne and the Modern Tradition of Painting: The Flat Side of the Landscape and Degas to Matisse: The Maurice Wetheim Collection, and editor of Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism.

'This excellent book gives the reader not only a scholarly document but an example of what abstract art has had to endure in the 20th century'

Marilyn Smulders:

'This excellent book gives the reader not only a scholarly document but an example of what abstract art has had to endure in the 20th century'

Catherine Osborne:

'This excellent book gives the reader not only a scholarly document but an example of what abstract art has had to endure in the 20th century'