Can we know a person through their work? Sir Winston Churchill: Making Art, Making History is a rare opportunity to see the largest private collection of paintings by Churchill outside of the United Kingdom, one which has never been exhibited publicly. The general public knows less of Churchill as a painter than as one of the world’s greatest statesmen and Nobel Prize-winning writer. The exhibition asks us to contemplate the role of painting in his kaleidoscopic life.

In 1915, when Winston Churchill was forty, he discovered the pleasures of painting via his neighbors, Hazel Lavery and Glasgow School painter Sir John Lavery, who gave Winston his first lesson. It was in 1915 that Churchill reached one of his lowest professional points – in the aftermath of the failed Dardanelles campaign, he resigned from government. Painting became a form of solace and therapy, shifting his focus away from the pressures and stresses of political life. It is the multifaceted nature of Churchill’s life, how he balanced the weight of public leadership and the constant press of his writing output with the personal solace of painting, that intrigues us most. Churchill took his cues from the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists he admired. Painting in the open air was a hallmark for the Impressionists and so too did Churchill haul his paints and canvas outdoors and into nature. Looking at a landscape painting by Churchill is like reading a page of his diary. Each location marked a special place for him. Churchill loved the French Riviera. He enjoyed long holidays along the coast of the South of France. He spent mornings here dictating to his secretary and his afternoons painting. The glorious sunlit seas inspired his sense of color, allowing him to utilize the spectrum of hues from cobalt to cerulean and every Prussian and ultramarine tint between. Winston Churchill painted about 550 works. He affectionately called them daubs — only six of which he sold and even then, under a pseudonym. He kept most at his home, Chartwell. Churchill did, however, offer many as gifts, to luminaries, staff members, and others who helped him. Churchill gave “View of Tinherir” (C538) as a gift to fellow Nobel Laureate General George C. Marshall, who Churchill admired for his service as U.S. Army Chief of Staff during World War II. Studying Churchill and his paintings contextualizes the man, known for his mastery of the word, as a student of paint, who treated his practice seriously. The Royal Academy of Art bestowed upon Churchill the title “Honorary Academician Extraordinary” in recognition of Churchill’s unique position as an eminent statesman and an accomplished artist. These paintings expand our appreciation for a man who thrived on challenges. Moreover, every artwork by Winston Churchill is an opportunity to imagine him picking up his brush, to see the same view that he saw, and to interact with a piece of history and culture.