This portrait dates from early on in Gwen John’s career, before she had adopted the more restricted colour palette seen in most of her work. The model was John’s sister, Winifred, with whom she had a close relationship. The sisters explored the Pembrokeshire countryside together as children, keen to escape the strict discipline of their home. Winifred also modelled for various other works by John.

Like Gwen, Winifred left Britain as a young woman: she moved to America in 1903, where she worked as a respected violinist and music teacher. Gwen moved to France around the same time, settling in Paris in 1904.

This painting depicts Gwen John’s attic studio in Paris. The few items of furniture look inexpensive, but the painting transforms an everyday subject into something almost magical. The soft light and the stillness of the painting are evocative, perhaps suggesting a psychological meaning beyond the room and objects actually represented within the canvas. Like many of John’s paintings, this one invites contemplation.

John lived in Paris from 1904, painting and earning money by working as an artist’s model for artists including the sculptor Auguste Rodin, who became her lover. When she made this painting, their affair was coming to an end.

The sitter for this painting was Chloe Boughton-Leigh, one of Gwen John’s closest friends. Chloe and her sister Maude had also studied at the Slade School of Art and were part of John’s small intimate circle.

John made three paintings of Chloe, plus a series of drawings. In this painting the austere costume and mostly grey-toned colour palette allows the emphasis to be on the warm reddish tones of Chloe’s face and hands. Her uncertain facial expression suggests that she is ruminating on something. While Chloe’s likeness is depicted, she also functions more generally as a contemplative woman alone in an interior, a common theme in John’s work.

In this painting the shade of earthy pink Bell often used is contrasted against areas of dark paint, as well as turquoise, red and mustard hues. Although facial details are minimal, the sitter has great force of character, her personality suggested through her pose and expression.

The sitter was Helen Dudley, who met Bell and the Bloomsbury Group through her friendship with the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Bell made the portrait at the Guildford home of the critic Roger Fry. A few years before, Fry had organised the earliest London exhibitions of French Post-Impressionist artists. This painting seems to reveal the influence of Matisse.

This bold painting captures the view from Bell’s first floor studio at Charleston in East Sussex. She noted the ‘extraordinary peace and beauty of the place’.

Bell made a feature of the window, using it to frame the view of the pond. The details of the interior are not allowed to recede, though: Charleston’s bold decor is captured, the vase on the sill and the patterned curtain giving a sense of its Bohemian homeliness. The landscape itself is semi-abstract, the reflections of the trees appearing like abstract shapes in the water.

Bell is increasingly considered one of the most innovative British painters of the early twentieth century.

This sunny landscape seems to nod to French art and the example set by Cézanne in particular, while the contrast between the greens and the earthy pink is characteristic of Bell’s own unique colour palette. The subject matter is probably a French vineyard. Bell had French ancestry and felt an affinity with the country, which she first visited in her late teens. Along with the artists Duncan Grant and Roger Fry, she spent long periods painting in the south of France during the 1920s in particular. This painting probably dates from around 1930, when Bell was in her early fifties.

This carefully composed painting dates from Knight’s time as part of an artists’ colony in Cornwall. The rocky viewpoint shown was one of her favourite subjects and it appears in various other studies. The picture is a good example of the way she combined realistic depictions of figures and landscapes with vigorous brushwork, as demonstrated by the marks comprising the rocks in the foreground. The female figure is shown as both part of, and an addition to, the landscape, her vivid dress billowing in the breeze.

During the Second World War, Knight’s work as an official war artist took her to airfields and factories all over England. This painting shows a team of women operating a barrage balloon. These were used to force German planes to fly above 5000 feet, which reduced the accuracy of enemy bombing and made them more vulnerable to attack. Women had been flying the balloons since April 1941; it was found that fourteen women, rather than twenty as initially thought, could replace a team of ten men to operate the balloons.

The two world wars Knight lived through played a key role in changing attitudes towards women and work. The Second World War ended a policy preventing married women from being employed in certain jobs.

Laura Knight sought out a diverse range of subject matter, from hospital patients to circus performers. This painting reflects her sustained interest in ballet dancers as a subject for her art. A later example, it was first exhibited at the Society of Women Artists in 1951. Knight’s interest is – as is often the case – backstage rather than in relation to performance. Her dancers are captured semi-unaware, one doing her makeup using a handheld mirror while the other looks directly at the viewer, her expression unreadable. The backdrop suggests something of the excitement and chaos of life backstage.

This canvas is a second, smaller version of Procter’s most famous painting, Morning, which was voted Picture of the Year at the 1927 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The painting was exhibited in New York and even on board the Cunard Company liner ships during its transit, before touring 23 British regional galleries between 1927 and 1929. It was subsequently purchased for the nation as part of the Tate collection. With Morning, Procter became a household name.

The model for the paintings was Cissie Barnes, the daughter of a Newlyn fisherman.

Within this painting, symbols of femininity are brought to the fore. The delicate ivory-coloured gloves are paired with a bunch of tulips which appear to have been bought from a florist. The lilac tissue paper used to wrap the flowers balance the composition to offer a separation from the gloves.

In the foreground, there is an intriguing box of cigarettes which references consumption. Interestingly, in the 1930s Procter designed a chocolate box for Cadbury’s which featured a bunch of flowers.

After the death of her husband in 1935, Procter travelled widely. She produced many portraits of the people she met on her travels, especially children. She also began to use softer brush strokes, in contrast to the naturalistic style of her earlier work.

She spent the winter of 1956 in Jamaica. Although the country was only a few years from independence by then, the booming tourist industry for British and American travellers probably made it possible for her to ignore the political tensions. Instead, she focused on her portraits of individual local people, which proved popular when she exhibited them back in England. The girl in this lively painting holds a piece of greenish fruit, which the picture’s title identifies as an orange.