| Admin/Biog History | (Edward) Eardley Knollys (19021991) was a member of the Bloomsbury Group of artists - variously an art critic, art dealer and collector, active from the 1920s to 1950s.
Knollys, along with his life partner Frank Coombs, ran the The Storran Gallery at 106 Brompton Road, opposite Harrods, from 1936 and 1944. They sold works by artists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Maurice Utrillo and Chaïm Soutine. It is not known how Nicolson and Knollys first became acquainted, but letters in the archive - all but one of which date from this time - reveal that Nicolson regular purchased works from Knollys during the period the Gallery was open.
Coombs was killed in a Second World War air raid in Belfast in 1941, which led to the bereaved Knollys closing the gallery in 1944. In 1945, Knollys, Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville and the music critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor, jointly bought a Georgian rectory in Long Crichel, Dorset, where along with Patrick Trevor-Roper, Raymond Mortimer and James Lees-Milne, they established what was, in effect, a male salon. At Long Crichel they entertained a wealth of friends from the worlds of books and music. Nicolson was a regular visitor and whilst he recorded his experiences in his journals, only one of the letters in the archive dates from this time. |
| Description | Includes correspondence concerning Knollys' work as a dealer, in particular concerning the sale of works by Bourlet, Picasso, Rousseau, Gaudier Brzeska, and Tchelitchew to Nicolson
Of particular note:
-letter, sent 7 July 1940, concerning the sale of a work by Picasso to Kenneth Clark
-letter, dated 12 May 1944, concerning the death of Frank Coombs and the Storran Gallery
-letter, undated [ post 1945] concerning works by Camille Pissarro |