Eardley Knollys was an English artist of the Bloomsbury School of artists, art critic, art dealer and collector, active from the 1920s to 1950s. He only began to paint himself in 1949, and had his first solo exhibition at the age of 58 in 1960, by which time he was already a "minor legend in British art".

He was a director of The Storran Gallery at 106 Brompton Road, opposite Harrods

Harrods

Harrods is an upmarket department store located in Brompton Road in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Aviation and Air...

.

Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville

Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville

Edward Charles Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville was a British music critic, novelist and, in his last years, a member of the House of Lords. Musically gifted as a boy, he was attracted as a young man to a literary life and wrote a series of semi-autobiographical novels in the 1920s and '30s...

, Patrick Trevor-Roper

Patrick Trevor-Roper

Patrick Trevor-Roper , British eye surgeon and pioneer gay rights activist, was one of the first people in the United Kingdom to "come out" as openly gay, and played a leading role in the campaign to repeal the UK's anti-gay laws....

, the literary critic Raymond Mortimer

Raymond Mortimer

Charles Raymond Mortimer Bell , who wrote under the name Raymond Mortimer, was a British writer, known mostly as a critic and literary editor....

, the music critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor

Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)

Desmond Christopher Shawe Taylor, , was a British writer, co-author of The Record Guide, music critic of The New Statesman, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times and a regular and long-standing contributor to The Gramophone.-Biography:Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, the elder of two sons of...

 and Knollys established "what in effect was a male salon, entertaining at the weekends a galaxy of friends from the worlds of books and music" in Long Crichel

Long Crichel

Long Crichel is a hamlet in east Dorset, England, situated on Cranborne Chase five miles north east of Blandford Forum. The hamlet has a population of 81 ....

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, including James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne was an English writer and expert on country houses. He was an architectural historian, novelist, and a biographer. He is also remembered as a diarist.-Biography:...

, a close friend of Knollys, who recruited him to join him at the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

 during WWII, and over the next 15 years accompanied him on many of the trips to country houses recorded in his published volumes of diaries.

Several photos from the 1920s of Knollys and friends by Lady Ottoline Morrell are in the National Portrait Gallery.