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For many people Winston Churchill is best known for making stirring wartime speeches and smoking fat cigars, but Britain’s most famous prime minister also loved to paint.
That less known side of his character is the subject of a new exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London that seeks to explore his creativity.
The organisers of the show have described it as the most significant display of Churchill’s paintings for more than 60 years. It includes more than 50 canvases, many of them rarely seen in public.
Churchill first tried painting during World War I after resigning from government in 1915 over the disastrous Dardanelles naval attack.
As First Lord of the Admiralty, he also had a pivotal role in the planning for the Gallipoli landings, which like Dardanelles, resulted in heavy casualties.
This was a “very difficult time in his life” when “he suddenly finds himself with all this unwanted leisure time”, Lucy Davis, co-curator of the exhibition, told France’s AFP news agency AFP.
“And he discovered painting as a way of releasing the stress, the anguish that the situation had caused him.”
The show presents Churchill’s works chronologically, starting with his creating made with counsel from renowned artist John Lavery. Those are followed by canvases painted in the 1920s at Chartwell, the country house where Churchill lived with his family.
Inspired by the south
Largely self-taught, Churchill quickly became interested in landscape painting and drew inspiration from holidays in the south of France and Morocco to create brightly coloured canvases dominated by blues and ochre.
Churchill “saw painting as a spur to travel” and “just loved the light and warmth and atmosphere, which he captures so beautifully”, said Davis.
A whole room is dedicated to canvases inspired by trips to Morocco, including “The Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque”, the only painting that Churchill did during World War II. A gift to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the painting recently belonged to Hollywood star Angelina Jolie until it was sold at auction in 2021.
As a statesman, Churchill went down in history for his wartime leadership, but as an artist, he had little interest in depicting current world events, according to Davis.
“He was a wartime leader. He was known for these very stirring wartime speeches. But in these paintings, you really see his joie de vivre, his witty side, his playful side.”
One painting at the exhibition is an exception: “The Beach At Walmer”, painted in 1938 as fears grew of imminent war. It depicts bathers paddling at a sandy beach on England’s southern coast while in the foreground, a black cannon points at the sea, suggesting a looming threat.
The exhibition ends with the postwar period when Churchill, defeated in a general election, began painting again and continued until his death in 1965, with some of his works going on display at the Royal Academy.
“Winston Churchill: The Painter”, is on at The Wallace Collection in London until 29 novembre 2026.
Video editor • Yolaine De Kerchove Dexaerde
Additional sources • AFP