Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Mahdist War (also known as the Anglo-Sudan War), and the Second Boer War, later gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire into the wealthy, aristocratic Spencer family. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. Apart from two years between 19, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Sutherland’s portrait of Churchill will be on public view at Blenheim Palace from 16-21 April, and at Sotheby’s in London and New York before its sale.Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. I expect this portrait to resonate there,” said Zlattinger. “It would be lovely if it stayed in the UK, but the real interest in Churchill is in North America. Sotheby’s estimates the painting will fetch between £500,000 and £800,000 when it is auctioned on 6 June. But this particular work was “a very different kind of painting, a really iconic image”, said Zlattinger. The prime minister had been painted by several great artists, including John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert and Oswald Birley. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between artist and sitter,” said Zlattinger. “Churchill was quite vain about how he was being portrayed, but Sutherland was reticent about showing his work to Churchill. It is unknown if Churchill ever saw the study now on display at Blenheim Palace. Eventually the brother of Grace Hamblin, the Churchills’ private secretary, transported it in the middle of the night to his home and burned it in his garden. The painting was taken to Chartwell, where it languished in a cellar.

What Sutherland saw in front of him was a magnificent ruin … Churchill said it made him look half-witted. The historian Simon Schama said in 2015: “The painting is an extraordinary homage to Churchill. He believed it was part of a conspiracy to bring him down, and threatened not to attend the unveiling ceremony. On seeing the finished portrait, Churchill described it to his personal doctor as “filthy and malignant”. The two men became friends, although Sutherland repeatedly resisted Churchill’s requests to view his work-in-progress. Sutherland replied by saying it depended what image Churchill presented, later remarking that the prime minister had consistently shown himself as a bulldog. Churchill was himself a keen and well-regarded amateur artist.Īt their first meeting, Churchill asked Sutherland: “How are you going to paint me? As a cherub or as the bulldog?” Churchill was nicknamed the bulldog for his physical appearance and his temperament. “Churchill is caught in a moment of absent-minded thoughtfulness.” The work was last on public show in 1982.Ĭhurchill and Sutherland had not met before the commission of the birthday portrait, although by then Sutherland was at the forefront of modern British art and was regarded as more important than his contemporary Francis Bacon. “It’s not a formal portrait, but an intimate portrayal,” said André Zlattinger, the head of modern British and Irish art at Sotheby’s, which is auctioning the work. It remained in Hecht’s ownership for the rest of his life, and was bequeathed to the present owner who is now selling it. Sutherland kept this work, and later gave it to Alfred Hecht, who was an art dealer, collector and framer of many paintings by the great artists of the day. View image in fullscreen The full portrait Photograph: Sotheby’s/PA

Winston churchhill