Dr Jody Patterson, Associate Professor of Art History, Plymouth University, is a specialist on art and politics during the mid-20th century. Her research explores mural painting and the democratisation of culture through public art. Whilst her work to date has focused on developments in the United States, she has now addressed the relations between America and Britain during the 1930s. Under the co-editorship of Professor David Peters Corbett, Director for the Centre for American Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art, and Professor Martin Hammer, University of Kent, Patterson was invited to contribute to a Special Edition of Tate Papers dedicated to exchanges between British and American artists in the years 1880–1980. Patterson responds to the theme of transatlanticism and its cultural effects through an analysis of English artists’ support for socially-engaged mural painting and details their collaborative initiatives with their American counterparts. Patterson’s essay is the latest in a series of publications examining public mural painting during the interwar period as a means of expanding extant narratives of the history of modern art.