Breezy, Accessible Modern Art History

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As a former media director of England's prestigious Tate gallery, Will Gompertz has been a front-row witness to what he calls "a central tension in the art world: public engagement versus scholarship."

Clearly the 47-year-old Brit is trying for a bit of both in his debut book, a breezy, accessible and educational history of modern art.

The Oxford-based Gompertz starts with a shout-out to two previous historians of art, E.H. Gombrich and Robert Hughes. While Gompertz can't manage Gombrich's intellectual depth or Hughes's incisive edge, he is a genial popularizer. Having worked as the BBC arts editor since 2009, he knows how to write jargon-free prose for a general …