The story of modern Scottish painting and sculpture. The book sets out the claim of such artists as Charles Rennie Mackintosh and J.D. Fergusson to be partners, not followers, in the early modern movement. It traces the impact of the ideas of the Scots Renaissance on the work of painters like William Johnstone, the evolution of a distinct Edinburgh School with Sir William Gillies, Anne Redpath and Sir Robin Philipson, and the important place that artists from Scotland such as Joan Eardley, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi and Alan Davie played in the post-war period in Britain. It examines the remarkable achievement of Ian Hamilton Finlay and the revolutionary impact of John Bellany's work, then brings the story right up to date, describing the astonishing talent of Steven Campbell, Ken Currie and the many other artists who have marked a new flowering of Scottish art in the last decade or so.