There he was in our collection, part of the Bill Sutton bequest from 2000 and listed in the 1949 Group Show catalogue as being H B Sands Esq of Nassau. Apart from that we knew pretty much nothing about him.

Hours of painstaking research (or was it a few moments using Google?) and up comes top Bahamian lawyer Harry Sands.

Imagine HIS surprise when I contacted him to see if the two gents above were one and the same person. Turns out they are and Mr Sands was both amazed and delighted to see a portrait of himself, painted in London in 1948 when he shared digs with Bill Sutton, that he had not seen for 66 years.