Collecting Modernism review – unique set of artworks a testament to queer culture

The kind of art you want to hang in your house, which is what they were doing … Edward Le Bas, EK [Eardley Knollys], Reading, c.1960s. Photograph: The Radev Collection

Three queer men built what is now known as the Radev Collection over the course of the 20th century, and it has become an intimate, idiosyncratic vision of modern art. Most collections are the product of a single person’s taste, but this one was handed down from man to man in a creative, purposeful inheritance of chosen family. It’s the story of that collaborative queer heritage that guides this exhibition, making it a nuanced exploration of what makes an art collection more than the sum of its parts.

Now on display at Charleston in Lewes, the collection was begun by Edward “Eddy” Sackville-West. In 1945, he and his close friend, gallerist Eardley Knollys bought an old rectory in Dorset, along with two other friends. Knollys and Sackville-West went about filling the house with the former’s penchant for French modernism and the latter’s inclination towards British work, often by friends including Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and John Banting.