Piero della Francesca and British art

The Baptism of Christ and The Nativity by Piero della Francesca (c 1415/20-1492) are two of the best-loved works in the National Gallery. This article considers the wide range of 20th-century artists, born or resident in Britain, who have been inspired by Piero's work. Extending the scholarship of Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Luciano Cheles, Caroline Elamand Lany Witham, which has explored Piero's influence on 20th-century art, and in particular on the British Modernist School centred around Roger Fry, this article examines the impact of Piero's work across other artistic movements in Britain in the first half of the 20th century, from the avant garde to the Tempera Revival painters and the more reactionary members of the Royal Academy, with special emphasis on the first generation of scholars at the British School at Rome.