Winston Churchill painting goes on display
A painting by Winston Churchill is on public display for the first time, along with his painting coat at Chartwell, a National Trust site.
During the pressures of leadership, Winston Churchill turned to painting as a source of focus and calm. He described painting as something that came to his rescue.
Chartwell is in Kent and is the former home of Winston Churchill. At Chartwell along with his paintings there are a selection of personal objects, art materials and and never seen works on display to explore his creative life and legacy.
The painting, Quiet Waters’ depicts a tranquil landscape and was created away from the public eye. It shows how painting helped Churchill to slow down, refocus and recover from the stress of public life. It is on loan from The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation. Churchill had given the painting to his close friend Lord Beaverbrook for his 80th birthday in 1959. Unusually, though he generally preferred bold and brilliant colours, this scene, with its complex reflections on the surface of the water, caught his eye, and is rendered in more muted colours, reflecting his remark, “All nature is equally interesting and equally charged with beauty”.
Visitors will also have the chance to see Churchill's painting coat and the steel-framed spectacles he used, up close for the first time. Spattered with paint, the cotton coat is witness to the many hours he spent in his art studio and outdoors creating over 500 works.
Though functional garments, Churchill’s painting overcoats were carefully made, typically by his tailors on Saville Row. As well as protecting his clothes while in his art studio, putting this coat on became part of his process. The only self-portrait he ever created shows him proudly wearing his white painting overcoat. At Chartwell, visitors can explore how art became his antidote to pressure and frustration by taking him closer to those quiet creative moments away from the world.
Among the items on display for the first time is a print taken from a painting by Sir Alfred Munnings, famed for his equestrian art and later President of the Royal Academy. The original belonged to Waldorf Astor, who loved it so much he commissioned a small run of prints in the early 1950s for close friends, including Winston Churchill. Munnings championed Churchill’s own painting, encouraging him to exhibit at the Royal Academy and helping secure his unique honour as an Honorary Academician Extraordinary, the only amateur artist ever to receive it.
Chartwell as a place of artistic inspiration continues. This year, while some of Chartwell’s collection is away on loan, the property is taking the opportunity to show eight winning paintings from a competition where amateur artists of all ages submitted works inspired by the house, garden and nature. Winners include primary school and sixth form students, printmakers and designers.
Churchill the Artist runs from Saturday 28 February to Sunday 1 November at Chartwell, Mapleton Rd, Westerham, Kent.
Photograph: National Trust