Shearer West is Professor of Art History at the University of Birmingham. Her books include Chagall (Bison, 1990), The Image of the Actor: Verbal and Visual Representation in the Age of Garrick and Kemble (Pinter, 1991), The Visual Arts in Germany 1890-1940 (Manchester UP, 2000), and Fin de Si^e'cle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty (Overlook, 1993). She is also the editor of The Bloomsbury Guide to Art (Bloomsbury, 1996).