A look at the extraordinary confluence of modern artists, thinkers and writers who made work in Langdale during the 1930-40s: writers such as Michael Roberts, Janet Adam-Smith and Norman Nicholson who drew on the landscape and history of this remote valley, the creatives and intellectuals including philosophers Olaf Stapledon and John MacMurray, choreographer Rudolf Laban, and visual artists Gwyneth Alban-Davis and Hilde Goldschmidt who transformed the Langdale Estate into something of a bohemian retreat while across the road on Cylinders Estate, Kurt Schwitters embarked on one of the most important sculptural projects of the twentieth century. Why was this remote Lakeland valley an important and grounding influence for such a diverse but important group of modernists?
