Peter Watson (arts benefactor)

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Victor William (Peter) Watson (September 14, 1908 – May 3, 1956) was a wealthy English art collector and benefactor. He was the youngest son of William George Watson, latter Sir George Watson and was educated at Eton College and Oxford.

The youngest of three children, his brother Norman was born in 1897 and sister Florence in 1894. Florence, married name Nagle, is famous for the prolonged battle she fought against Britain's Jockey Club, the controlling body for horse racing. Norman provided funding for the early development of Lake Louise, a ski resort in Alberta, Canada.

Peter Watson is perhaps best-known for funding the literary magazine Horizon, edited by Cyril Connolly, and for being the principle benefactor of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He also provided financial assistance to English painter Francis Bacon, and was an avid art collector acquiring works by such artists Miro, Klee, and Picasso which were displayed in his Paris apartment in the 1930s.

In 1930, society photographer, artist and set designer Sir Cecil Beaton began a lifelong obsession with Watson, though the two never became lovers. One chapter from Hugo Vickers' authorized biography of Cecil Beaton is titled "I Love You, Mr. Watson". According to Cyril Connolly's biographer, Clive Fisher, "Another friend was Stephen Spender, who remembered that Watson hated 'priggishness, pomposity and almost everything to do with public life,' and suspected that he had educated himself 'through a love of beautiful works and of people in whom he saw beauty ...When I think of him then, I think of his clothes, which were beautiful, his general neatness and cleanness, which seemed almost those of a handsome young Bostonian.'"

Clive Fisher writes that Peter Watson "was a figure of striking attractivenss; women in particular seem to have found his manners irresistible... almost everyone appears to have liked him." One of Watson's lovers was American male prostitute and socialite Denham Fouts, whom he continued to support even after they separated as a result of Fouts' drug addiction

Watson was found mysteriously drowned in his bath on May 3, 1956. Some have suggested that he was murdered by his young American lover, Norman Fowler^[1](from whom Bacon stole £300 to go gambling)^{[citation needed]}. Fowler inherited the bulk of Watson's estate and died 14 years later in the West Indies; ironically he was also found drowned in his bathtub.^{[citation needed]}