Winston Churchill: The Painter At The Wallace Collection

Offering fresh insights into another side of the Prime Minister, including artistic connections with two US Presidents, this will profusely elate your mood

The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN, until November 29, 2026

www.wallacecollection.org

By Estelle Lovatt |

In Britain, and across the Atlantic in the United States of America, Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was hugely respected as British Prime Minister of the UK during World War II, and then again from 1951-55. But many people don’t know that he was a prolific and talented artist.

The last major retrospective of his paintings was held in 1958, and it was organized with the support of US President Dwight Eisenhower and Hallmark founder JC Hall. The exhibition toured North America, continuing on a wider international tour to New Zealand and Australia.

Churchill had famously persuaded US President Roosevelt to accompany him to Marrakech in 1943, where he painted the mountainous landscape and mosque from his hotel. The artwork (below), which he painted for Roosevelt, was the only painting he made during the World War II.

Churchill turned to painting for several very personal reasons. He began painting in 1915 as a comforting private source of escape in the aftermath of the First World War. It provided a reflective refuge from the pressures of public life. The creative act soon became a lifelong discipline that he pursued whenever and wherever he traveled. From wartime Britain through the English countryside to southern Europe to France, Italy, and Marrakech, capturing coastal towns, harbors and villas. Through rich color, energetic brushwork, and textured surfaces, Churchill developed his own bold visual language.

From tentative early works to more assured late paintings, Churchill showed a surprising range as an artist, his subjects including: somber wartime scenes; Mediterranean harbors; still-lifes with silverware reflecting bottles and ceramics; Moroccan cityscapes (some of which he presented as diplomatic gifts); portraits; front-line ‘war pictures’ made in Belgium; Chartwell (his home for over forty years, later acquired by the National Trust and now open to the public); and the gardens and interiors of friends’ English country houses. His paintings reveal the pleasure he took in capturing everything that took his eye, be that dazzling blue skies, vivid green foliage, crisp white snow or warm pink radiating sunsets.

Churchill, the fine artist, emerges as a striking contrast to Churchill the statesman and public leader we know. Drawing inspiration from his contemporary artists, he developed his own artistic practice. That it was at his easel that he found most peace, inner strength and renewal, paintbrush in hand, is clear.

As a result, the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings, invited Churchill to submit paintings for the annual Summer Exhibition, in 1947. Churchill entered two works in the ‘outsider’ category under the pseudonym David Winter. Once his identity became known, he was celebrated as the first Prime Minister to exhibit at the Royal Academy. The following year was elected an Honorary Academician Extraordinary in recognition of his ‘eminent services to our Realm and People’ and his ‘achievements in the Art of Painting’. This distinction entitled him to continue exhibiting at the Summer Exhibition, which he continued to do until 1951.

The Wallace Collection’s major retrospective of Churchill’s paintings is the first substantial exhibition of his art in the UK since his death. It features more than 50 works, around half from private collections, rarely seen in public before. The exhibition includes a small group of works by his artist mentors and friends, including the Irish artist Sir John Lavery (Lavery’s wife Hazel, an American, also taught art to the budding Churchill) and Sir William Nicholson whom Churchill called "Cher Maître". Walter Sickert, in particular, also encouraged Churchill as an amateur to experiment with technique and refine his craft.

Offering magnificent fresh insights into Churchill, the public figure known globally for his politics, being sustained by his lifelong passion for painting, this is a choice 5-star must-see. It will profusely elate your mood.

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