William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme a painting by Edmund Leighton. Lever's rival in the soap industry, A & F Pears, had taken the lead in using art for marketing by buying paintings such as "Bubbles" by John Everett Millais to promote its products. Lever's response was to acquire similarly illustrative works, and he later bought 'The New Frock' by William Powell Frith to promote the Sunlight soap brand. In 1922 he founded the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight in Cheshire which he dedicated to his late wife Elizabeth. William Lever was born on 19 September 1851 at 16 Wood Street, Bolton, Lancashire, England.
Raoul Millais Alfred Munnings, Millais was an opponent of Modernism in art, which he called "the Picasso lark". He died in 1999 in his 99th year in Oxfordshire, England He married Elinor Claire (d. 1953), daughter of late Allan Ronald Macdonell, of Montreal, and had two sons, John and Hugh. He married secondly Kay Prior Palmer with whom he had a third son, Hesketh Merlin. Raoul Millais Hesketh Raoul Lejarderay Millais (1901–1999), usually known as Raoul or 'Liony' Millais was a portrait painter, equestrian artist and sportsman. He was the grandson of Sir John Everett Millais and the son of John Guille