Bloomsbury and Beyond As the Radev Collection is shown for the first time art historian Julian Machin explains the background to this extraordinarily personal collection
Eddy Sackville-West (1901–1965), fresh from Eton, and Eardley Knollys (1902–1991), from Winchester, met at Christ Church, Oxford, on their first day there in October 1920. In aspect, they were un-alike. Eardley thought Eddy looked like a beetle, and although opinions differed, most regarded him as mournfullooking and singular. Although tall, Eardley was not in the least formidable and was described by Harold Nicholson in a letter to Vita Sackville-West as 'that hellenic vision with scented amber curls.' Fleetingly he and Eddy were lovers, and thereafter settled into a friendship which lasted until Eddy died suddenly of an asthma attack in 1965 at his estate in Ireland. That same day, Eardley had written to him to say that he was withdrawing from the weekend salon they had established at Crichel House, near Long Crichel in Dorset. As unexpected as Eddy's demise, was the bequest to Eardley that followed it – Eddy's entire collection of pictures, some of which Eardley had previously sold to him as past owner of the Storran Gallery in London. Less of a surprise was his effective status as Eddy's literary executor, but both gestures were testament to their friendship, anchored by Eardley's enduring compassion, openness and his non-excitable companionship since that first day at Oxford, nearly 45 years earlier. The Storran Gallery had been located at 5, Albany Court Yard, off Piccadilly. From 1936, its two partners, Eardley and Frank Coombs, trawled a number of Duncan Grant , Seated Male Nude from Behind, 1938, Oil on canvas, © 1978 Estate of Duncan Grant, courtesy Henrietta Garnett
ravishing private collections in Paris, including of Mme Paul Guillaume and M. Jean Netter, the friend of Modigliani's dealer, Zborovski, managing to extract major pictures on sale or return by Picasso, Utrillo, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Vlaminck and Derain, and putting on magnificent shows of Modigliani, Utrillo and Soutine. They were also active on behalf of many unknown artists who have long since been regarded as Modern British masters, and elicited the christening of the 'Euston Road Group' from Clive Bell's review of their 1938 exhibition '15 Paintings of London', often selling to major institutions and collectors. When Frank Coombs was killed in an air raid in 1944, Eardley could not face continuing without him and he closed the gallery. Thereafter he worked for the National Trust as a regional representative, but privately continued dealing in pictures. A few acquisitions that were made under the aegis of the Storran survive; 'Cornish Flowers', 1920, by Matthew Smith is one, bought from the collector GP Dudley Wallis in 1938 for £145. The paintings Eardley garnered from Eddy enhanced his collection considerably, whilst annoying the remaining members of the Crichel House coterie by the gaps on their walls, although some things he left there on loan, such as 'Coombe Valley Factory' by Adrian Ryan, which was returned only in 1987. For Eardley had bought a new weekend retreat with the Bulgarian Mattei Radev (1927–2009), whom he had met sometime after the latter's arrival in London in 1950. Radev had fled from Communism by stowing 25