The second interesting conversation was about the portrait of Barbara Bonner, who was a ballerina depicted backstage between rehearsals for a west end show in 1930. The sketch was in watercolour, gouache and charcoal, and the main portrait I think was in oils. I spoke to a New Zealand lady who was really excited to see the picture. She was friends with Barbara Bonner's daughter in NZ, and the family had never seen the portrait. The oil painting was in the private collection of Earl Hoover and the sketch was credited to Nottingham City Museums & Galleries.
This made me start thinking about who knows the location of paintings. Family members may know that a portrait was done, but not know where it ended up. So in order for an exhibition to be assembled, how does the curator find the owners? If the artist kept records of commissions and sales, that would be a starting point, but what about subsequent sales or gifts? For an exhibition of someone like Laura Knight, her estate might have knowledge of where her unsold paintings were distributed and her work as a War Artist would be documented. I also wonder whether her portraits of people less valued by society remained in her estate, whereas the commissions of the great and the good were sold, and possibly resold. Maybe I need to go back a second time and talk to the staff about how exhibitions are researched and compiled. What criteria are involved in owners agreeing to lend their works, and what criteria do curators use to select the works?
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