Eardley Knollys was a very charming and debonair man who was a respected art critic, art dealer and collector. He was a member of the Bloomsbury group of artists and counted amongst his friends, Duncan Grant, Edward Le Bas, Lady Ottoline Morill and Frances Partridge. Coming to painting later in life after working in advertising, travelling and some time as a less than successful film maker in Hollywood, he returned to the UK and for several years was Viscount Hambledon's private secretary, finally enabling him to become a respected art dealer at the Storran Gallery in the Brompton Road oppisite Harrods which he took over with his partner Frank Coombs. The Gallery became one of the most fashionable venues in London and sold works by Modigliani, Picasso, Utrillo and Soutine and joint exhibitions including works by Ivon Hitchins, Victor Pasmore, Graham Bell and Duncan Grant. Coombs was killed in WWII in an air raid in Belfast in 1941 and a bereft Knollys closed the gallery in 1944.
Already a minor 'legend in British Art', Knollys finally took the advice of his friend Edward Le Bas to become a painter in his own right and in 1949 bought a Georgian Rectory in Long Crichel in Dorset with friends Edward Sackville-West,and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, subsequently moving to Slade Hill House in Hampshire with Mattei Radev, a former lover of E M Forster, who became Knolly's life long partner. Knollys focused on painting landscapes and still lifes and delighted in a strong palette influenced by more strident aspects of post-impressionism. Knollys was also greatly influenced by the colours and style of Gauguin. In an introductory note in one of his early exhibition catalogues, he wrote 'I have always loved strong, bright colours - muddy ones seem to me symbols of gloom. This led me to the Pont Aven and Fauve painters,and they remain my favourites. I try to drive along the splendid road they opened - in my own car of course and with some personal diversions.' Duncan Grant described Knollys' work as marked by 'such courageous enthusiasm - he is one of the purest painters I know.' Knollys had his first solo exhibition in 1960 at the Minories in Colchester, others taking place in London and one in New York in 1985. . He proved a tireless artist and painted constantly until his death at the age of eighty nine.
When Knolly's freind Edward Sackville-West died in 1965, Knollys inherited Sackville-West's extraordinary art collection to which he added such names as Graham Sutherland, Ivon Hitchins and Gaudier Brzeska - the collection finally being bequeathed to Mattei Radev who preserved it in its entirety and it subsequently became know as The Radev Collection consisting of over 800 works of Impressionist and Modernist art.