Uplifting the Colonial Philistine is a thoroughly researched, fascinating account of the unusual circumstances in which early Johannesburg, then a budding mining town, came to have an art gallery with one of the most avantgarde collections in the world. It describes the larger-than-life characters who brought the Johannesburg Art Gallery to its grand launch in November 1910: Florence Phillips, wife of one of the Randlord patrons, and Hugh Lane, curator. Containing 100 reproductions from the original catalogue, this book unravels the complex intertwining of personal and socio-political agendas that made up the fabric of the founding.