Churchill: The Statesman as Artist

1. Self-portrait, c.1915, vividly depicting the ‘black dog’ of depression by which Churchill was blighted in the aftermath of the Dardanelles disaster. © Churchill Heritage

2. Plug Street, 1916, painted when Churchill was on active service on the Western front at Ploegsteert, which was known as ‘Plug Street’ to the British troops. © Churchill Heritage

3. The gardens at Hoe Farm, with Lady Gwendeline Churchill in the foreground, 1915. It was ‘Goonie’, as she was known in the family, who persuaded her brother-in-law Winston to take up painting. © Churchill Heritage

4. Sir John Lavery in his studio, 1915. Churchill gave this picture to Lavery in gratitude for his early help and advice. © National Trust, Chartwell

5. The Long Library at Blenheim Palace in 1916, with Sir John Lavery’s wife Hazel, and ‘Goonie’ Churchill both at their easels. © Churchill Heritage

6. The Blue Room at Port Lympne, c. 1921. Owned by Sir Philip Sassoon, Port Lympne was one of many country houses that Churchill loved to visit – and to paint. © Churchill Heritage

7. The Long Gallery at Sutton Place, 1921. This Tudor mansion was owned by the Duke of Sutherland, and was another favourite subject for Churchill. © Churchill Heritage

8. The Pyramids, 1921, painted by Churchill when he was in Cairo, presiding over a conference as Colonial Secretary, intended to settle the future of the Middle East. © Churchill Heritage

9. Winter Sunshine at Chartwell, c. 1924. This would be one of the pictures entered by Churchill, as ‘David Winter’, for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1947. © Churchill Heritage

10. Trees at Mimizan, c. 1925. Mimizan was the French estate of the second Duke of Westminster, where Churchill was a regular visitor during the inter-war years. © Churchill Heritage

11. The Palladian Bridge at Wilton, 1925. Wilton was the home of the Earl of Pembroke, and Churchill also stayed there frequently. Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11, 2017

12. The Great Hall at Blenheim Palace, c. 1928. This was one of many Blenheim interiors that Churchill painted, and he gave it to his cousin, the Duke of Marlborough. © Churchill Heritage

13. Tea at Chartwell, c. 1928. Based on a photograph taken in the dining room at Chartwell by Donald Ferguson in the previous year. © Churchill Heritage

14. The second Duke of Westminster with his lurcher Sam, late 1920s. Another picture that Churchill, influenced by Sickert, painted from a photograph. © Churchill Heritage

15. Tapestries at Blenheim Palace, c. 1930, commemorating the first Duke of Marlborough’s great military victory of 1704. © Churchill Heritage

16. View of Monte Carlo and Monaco, c. 1930. Churchill adored the French Riviera, for its light and warmth, but also because he liked to gamble in the local casinos. © Churchill Heritage

17. Studio still life, c. 1930. Churchill preferred to work in the open air, but if the weather was bad, he would paint indoors. © Churchill Heritage

18. Loch Scene on the Duke of Sutherland’s Scottish estate, c. 1930. As this dull picture suggests, Churchill preferred sun-lit coastlines to brooding mountains. © Churchill Heritage

19. Magnolia, 1930s. Many of Churchill’s indoor paintings were of vases of flowers. © Churchill Heritage

20. North Porch at the Manor House, Cranborne, 1930s. Churchill gave this painting to Viscount Cranborne, who lived there, and later became fifth Marquess of Salisbury. © Churchill Heritage

21. Harbour, Cannes, 1933. A quintessential Churchill rendition of a sun-drenched Mediterranean coastline. © Churchill Heritage

22. Marrakech, c. 1935. One of Churchill’s first paintings of the Moroccan city where he (but not Clementine) would spend so much time in his later years. © Churchill Heritage

23. Château at St Georges-Motel, 1935–36. The summer home of Consuelo Balsan, who had divorced the Duke of Marlborough and married a rich Frenchman. © Churchill Heritage

24. Chartwell in Winter, c. 1935. This view from the house looks over Churchill’s studio (left) and beyond to the Weald of Kent. It was a vista of which he never tired. © Churchill Heritage

25. View of Marrakech, 1943. Churchill’s most famous painting: the only one he completed during the Second World War, which he gave to President Roosevelt. © Churchill Heritage

26. Scene on Lake Como, 1945. A similar picture was also painted at the same time by Field Marshal Alexander who, like Churchill, was both a soldier and an artist. © Churchill Heritage

27. St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, 1946. Another warm and brightly lit Mediterranean coastline: the sort of view, and the sort of painting, that helped Churchill recover from his electoral defeat of the previous year. © Churchill Heritage

28. The Gorge at Todra, 1951. Completed while Churchill was once again staying at Marrakech, working on his war memoirs and relaxing with his paints. © Churchill Heritage

29. Cap d’Ail, 1952. One of the few paintings Churchill completed during his peacetime premiership: a view of the Mediterranean from La Capponcina, Lord Beaverbrook’s villa. © Churchill Heritage

30. Clementine Churchill at the launching of HMS Indomitable, March 1940. Painted in August 1955, soon after Churchill’s retirement, and based on one of his favourite photographs of his wife. © Churchill Heritage

31. Oranges and Lemons, 1958. This still life had been arranged by Wendy Reeves who, with her husband Emery, gave Churchill lavish hospitality during the late 1950s at their French villa, La Pausa. © Churchill Heritage

32. Walls at Marrakech, 1959. One of Churchill’s last paintings, from his final visit to Morocco. The light and the warmth are gone, and the melancholy is back. © Churchill Heritage

33. The ninth Duke of Marlborough and his family, 1905. A sumptuous painting by John Singer Sargent, but it could scarcely compensate for the loss of so many Blenheim Old Masters at the sales that had taken place twenty years before. © Bridgeman Images

34. Churchill making his first forays into painting at Hoe Farm in the summer of 1915, with Clementine looking on.

35. Churchill and Charles Chaplin at Chartwell in 1935. Churchill was fascinated by the cinema, and admired Chaplin’s work, but the two men’s political views were very different. © Getty Images

36. The Marlborough pavilion at Chartwell, built as a summer house during the mid- 1920s, and decorated in 1949 by Churchill’s nephew, John. © National Trust, Chartwell; Jon Primmer

37. Churchill and canvasses in his studio at Chartwell in 1945. © Getty Images

38. Churchill painting at the Villa Choisi on the shores of Lac Leman in Switzerland in August 1946. © Broadwater Collection

39. Churchill’s Royal Academy Diploma, appointing him an Honorary Academician Extraordinary in 1948, ‘in consideration of your eminent services to our Realm and People, and of your achievements in the Art of Painting.’ © National Trust Chartwell

40. Churchill photographed by Karsh of Ottawa at the Royal Academy banquet in the summer of 1956: full of years and honour, wearing the Order of Merit around his neck, and the sash and star of the Order of the Garter. © Camera Press London; Yousuf Karsh

41. Churchill painting at La Capponcina in 1960. But by then his years as an artist were almost over.

42. Churchill and Sir Charles Wheeler, the President of the Royal Academy, at the Academy banquet in the summer of 1963, the last which he attended. © Bridgeman Images