Churchill’s Aura, and Bright Colors, Draw New Fans to His Art
Winston Churchill, whose fiery resolve and puckish impudence led many to embrace him as an inspiring, authentic, if imperfect, leader, never set out to become an accomplished artist. He only began painting as a respite from depression when, at age 40 in 1915, he resigned as the civilian head of Britain’s Royal Navy during World War I.
He had advocated that the Allied navies open what turned out to be a disastrous front in the Dardanelles strait.
“Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time,” he later wrote.
But perseverance, which served Churchill well in other settings, also led him to become a reliable, productive performer with a brush who created more than 500 works. They are prized today, perhaps more for their authorship than their aesthetics, but they are nonetheless adept, often colorful, evocations of the world he witnessed, and are seeing a recent uptick in interest and prices, according to some dealers, auction houses and art historians.
“A whole generation has discovered him,” said Timothy Riley, director and chief curator at America’s National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
Three Churchills sold at auction last month, for prices that ranged from $376,000 to $630,000. Two were paintings that Churchill gave to Anthony Eden, who succeeded him as Britain’s prime minister in 1955 — “Still Life, Silver at Chartwell” and “The Canal at St-Georges-Motel” (circa 1930) — and were sold by Eden heirs at Christie’s London.
Last year, a new auction record was set for a work by Churchill when “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” (1943), which depicts a view of Marrakesh, was sold at Christie’s in London for $11.5 million to a Belgian collector. The collector also bought two other works by Churchill at that same sale: “Scene at Marrakesh” (1935) for $2.6 million, and “St. Paul’s Churchyard” (1927), for $1.5 million.
“Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” had been owned by Angelina Jolie, the actress and filmmaker, who received it as a gift from her husband, Brad Pitt, before their breakup, according to Bill Rau, a New Orleans art and antiques dealer. He said he has sold many Churchills, including that work to Pitt. (The previous high price for a Churchill painting at auction had been the $2.7 million paid in 2014 for “The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell” (1932), which is set at Churchill’s former estate in southeastern England.)
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
I’ve never seen Winston Churchill’s paintings in person, but what strikes me vividly even in reproduction is their unusually open and lucid sense of space.
Let’s take a closer look at his work →
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
In his “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque,” a broad pink mosque stands in front of a cluster of houses, a modest line of trees, and the undulating snow-capped peaks of the lavender Atlas Mountains.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
He painted it in Morocco, after the Casablanca Conference in 1943, where Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to pursue the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers. Churchill later gave it to Roosevelt.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
Despite all those irregular lines across the middle, the horizon has a taut, almost military precision, and the scene falls back toward the sky dramatically.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
Not realistically, exactly, or in any great detail, but in a way that vividly conveys the sense of distance and breadth Churchill experienced in North African light.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
His “Interior, the Long Gallery at Sutton Place,” a study of the reds and browns of a 16th-century mansion in Surrey was painted more than two decades earlier, but exhibits the same effect.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
You feel as if Churchill’s attention, or even his presence, had fluttered right past the easel in order to hover at the far end of the hall.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
To be clear, we’re still talking about the works of a capable amateur, of note — and of occasionally startling financial value — chiefly because they were made by the wartime prime minister of Britain. “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” sold last year for about $11.5 million.
A Closer Look at Churchill the Painter
Will HeinrichArt Critic
But they’re undeniably very pleasant, with reliable, if slightly literal-minded, composition and lovely colors.
And it’s always nice to remember a time when politicians could afford to be cultured while still in office.
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