Five Extraordinary Young Artists Before and During the Great War. The story of the formative periods of five of the most important British artists of the 20th century: Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Richard Nevinson and Stanley Spencer. From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the School's 'last crisis of brilliance'. There were love affairs, obsessions, murders and suicide, and they would have to endure the Great War, which changed them - and England - forever.