Joseph Southall is perhaps the most important 'Arts and Crafts' painter. Born in Nottingham in 1861, Southall spent most of his life in Birmingham, where he originally trained to be an architect, before falling under the spell of John Ruskin and switching his interests to painting. He played a key role in the revival of the medieval techniques of tempera and fresco painting. This revival became a defining element in the identity of the Birmingham Group, of which he was a leading member. This book is illustrated throughout with works by Southall formerly in the Fortunoff Collection. They show a wide variety of work produced by Southall during his lifetime. As well as superb watercolours of England, there are also scenes from the Italian lakes and Tuscany; several images of sailing barques in the harbour at Fowey in Cornwall and a number of works done at Southwold in Suffolk, where the Southalls spent every July. These range from tempera paintings of local fishermen and their boats to delightful pencil and chalk studies of elegant ladies and children playing on the beach.