A long forgotten 1934 exhibition by the Australian expatriate J. W.
Power at the Abstraction-Creation gallery in Paris provides the key to
understanding this most elusive artist, arguably Australia's most
important avant-gardist of the early 20th century. In Paris, he studied
with Pedro Araujo and Fernand Leger and showed with Leonce Rosenberg and
Galerie Jeanne Bucher. Art historian Gladys Fabre describes how this
group was the focus for the international avant-garde moving through
Paris in the 1930s. Virginia Spate examines Power's creative process
through the analysis of a single painting. The book reveals how Power's
work illuminates the relationships between France and Australia, an
exchange that goes to the heart of Australia's modernism.