John Rothenstein, then the Tate Gallery’s director, first met Le Roux Smith Le Roux during a visit to South Africa in 1948. Le Roux, then director of the Pretoria Art Centre, had been appointed to act as Rothenstein’s guide. He mounted a large reception in his guest’s honour and travelled widely with him. What almost certainly sealed their friendship, however, was the fact that Le Roux had spent time in London on a scholarship and studied mural painting at the Royal College of Art – then in the charge of Sir William Rothenstein, John’s father. It had been Sir William, too, who had helped Le Roux obtain his first commission: a set of murals for South Africa House in Trafalgar Square that remains in place to this day.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Rothenstein struggled to restore the Tate’s administration. ‘Staff position now really bad at Tate: rapidly growing arrears and confusion,’ reads an entry in his diary from 12 February 1946. So when Le Roux resigned from his post in South Africa in 1949, Rothenstein encouraged him to apply for a position at the Tate: ‘If you arrive no later than March next year, the interview will take place immediately, and I can guarantee you the position, provided your qualifications are in order.’

Philippe Le Roux, the author of After the Dance and Le Roux Smith Le Roux’s son, offers several possible explanations for Rothenstein’s appointment of a relatively unknown South African to the position of deputy keeper of the Tate. The gallery was disorganised, Rothenstein was too busy and his predecessor’s dismissal