Charles Hudson Kearley was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 property developer and art collector.

Background and education

Kearley was educated at Gresham's School

Gresham's School

Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...

, in Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

. His father, C.F. Kearley, was the brother of Hudson Ewbanke Kearley, 1st Viscount Devonport

Hudson Kearley, 1st Viscount Devonport

Hudson Ewbanke Kearley, 1st Viscount Devonport, PC, DL was a British grocer and politician. He founded the International Tea Company's Stores, became the first chairman of the Port of London Authority, and served as Minister of Food Control during World War I.-Early life and business...

, and head of the firm of Kearley & Tonge, tea importers and jam manufacturers. C.F. Kearley had also gone into business as a builder and property developer, and his son Charles joined the firm after leaving school.

Career

Kearley's influence appeared in the progressive buildings erected by the family firm. One important project was Fairacres at Roehampton

Roehampton

Roehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...

, a group of modern flats. In 1936, Kearley asked the architect and artist Raymond Myerscough-Walker (1908–1984) to make drawings of a design by Minoprio & Spenceley. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship, with Myerscough-Walker encouraging Kearley's enthusiasm for modern art, architecture and design. C F Kearley's next development was Kensal House, a block of modern flats in Ladbroke Grove

Ladbroke Grove

Ladbroke Grove is a road in west London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is also sometimes the name given informally to the immediate area surrounding the road. Running from Notting Hill in the south to Kensal Green in the north, it is located in North Kensington and straddles...

 by the architect Maxwell Fry

Maxwell Fry

Edwin Maxwell Fry, CBE, RA, FRIBA, FRTPI, known as Maxwell Fry , was an English modernist architect of the middle and late 20th century, known for his buildings in Britain, Africa and India....

.

Kearley inherited the business and undertook many projects, including designs by Myerscough-Walker and Maxwell Fry which are important examples of modern architecture.

War

During the Second World War, Kearley was in a reserved occupation. He built airfields and also manufactured air-sea rescue boats.

Interests

In the 1940s, Kearley moved to the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

, where he owned a hotel and also had a farm. He continued as a property developer, building flats in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, the Canary Islands

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...

, and elsewhere. But his greatest interests were in yachting

Yachting

Yachting refers to recreational sailing or boating, the specific act of sailing or using other water vessels for sporting purposes.-Competitive sailing:...

, owning racehorses, and in contemporary art.

Art Collection

Much of Kearley's art collection was bought on the advice of the critic R. H. Wilenski, a champion of modern art. The collection grew to include important works such as John Piper

John Piper (artist)

John Egerton Christmas Piper, CH was a 20th-century English painter and printmaker. For much of his life he lived at Fawley Bottom in Buckinghamshire, near Henley-on-Thames.-Life:...

’s painting of a bombed-out church in Bristol, commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee, and Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...

’s ‘1946 (still life – cerulean)’. Continental 20th century artists such as Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

, André Derain

André Derain

André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...

, Gino Severini

Gino Severini

Gino Severini , was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of...

 and Fernand Léger

Fernand Léger

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

 were also well represented.

In 1975 John Lomax

John Lomax

John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...

 designed a modern house at Hat Hill Copse to house Kearley's collection of modern art. The house is now the home of the Cass Sculpture Foundation. He had no children to leave his collection to, and he decided to bequeath it to the district of Chichester

Chichester

Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...

 for its Pallant House Gallery

Pallant House Gallery

Pallant House Gallery is an art gallery in Chichester, West Sussex, England. It houses one of the best collections of 20th century British art in the world....

, which had opened in 1982.