The Kearley Bequest

Charles Kearley (1904–1989) inherited his father’s property development business and undertook a number of projects in the 1930s including flats by the architects Myerscough-Walker and Maxwell Fry that are recognised as important examples of modernist housing. Kearley took Fry’s open plan penthouse flat in Kensal House in Ladbroke Grove for himself and his need to furnish it prompted the start of his art collection.

Many of his purchases were bought on the advice of the art critic R H Wilenski, a champion of Modern British art who helped Kearley develop his taste. With a budget of around £700 a year spent mostly at auction houses, the collection grew to include key works such as John Piper’s painting of a bombed-out church in Bristol, commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee, and Ben Nicholson’s ‘1946 (still life – cerulean)’, a work showing the influence of the Cubists and, in particular, Juan Gris. These works by British artists complement those in the Gallery’s founding collection, the Hussey Bequest. He also collected works by European artists including Paul Cézanne, André Dérain, Le Corbusier, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger and Gino Severini.

Kearley displayed his collection at his house at Hathill Copse just outside Chichester. He commissioned architect John Lomax to build it in 1975 and it is now the home of Cass Sculpture Foundation. Kearley’s approach had an aesthetic sense of purpose and the artworks complemented the modernist interior and vice versa. With no immediate family to whom to leave his collection, his gift to Pallant House Gallery, made through the Art Fund in 1989, was prompted by nothing more than an interest in the public good.