Examining literary giants through brushstrokes

In this section, MacLeod highlights a Cubism-style portrait of T.S. Eliot by Patrick Heron. Heron became a renowned artist later, but he was quite young when he painted the portrait of Eliot after the poet won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

The Picasso-influenced style seems well-suited to Eliot, who wrote The Waste Land after World War I, depicting a bleak perspective on life and humanity.

Later, Heron recounted his experience as a young artist who was intimidated by the great poet, but then, "I think maybe Heron was trying to reassure himself that Eliot wasn't such a scary person after all," MacLeod says.

MacLeod wants to draw attention to the white outline of a cat with an arched back on Eliot's shoulder. "I think Heron is referring to Eliot's cat poems, which were completely different from his other works," she says, culminating in the first edition of Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which features a dust jacket designed by Eliot himself. Later, Andrew Lloyd Webber composed his renowned musical The Cats based on the book.

The second section is The Journey to Success, revealing writers' struggles and route to recognition and achievement. The third section focuses on Suppression, Censorship and Secrecy. Female artists, represented by the Bronte sisters, used to publish under men's names. The creased portrait painted by their brother Branwell Bronte is the only surviving painting of Anne, Emily and Charlotte Bronte together, and one of "the most missed (since it was moved to Shanghai) paintings in our gallery," Macleod says.