January 1, 1970

Introduced by Richard M. Langworth

The hobby Churchill began in 1915, as a diversion from his despair over the Dardanelles disaster, became his constant companion for over forty years. But how good an artist was he? Would his work matter had he just been an artist?

The Royal Academy critic Pierre Jeannerat thought Churchill had ‘considerable natural gifts of visual sensibility, and, as might be expected, character and boldness …. Colour, singing colour, is the major impression …’. But the biographer Robert Payne said he was ‘not good or even remarkable. He could never paint a portrait … He could dominate vast spaces, but little spaces disturbed and annoyed him.’ Churchill himself never claimed he was more than an enthusiastic amateur. But he was, said Sir Hugh Casson of the Royal Academy, ‘an amateur of considerable natural ability who could have held his own with most professionals … especially as a colourist’.

Read the full article, here: ‘Churchill as Painter: The Artist and His Critics’, by Merry Alberigi, in Finest Hour 85, Winter 1994-95, scroll to page 2.