January 1, 1970

A recent exhibition showcased some of Churchill’s paintings alongside those of the Moroccan artist and Churchill’s protege Hassan el Glaoui, and offered a fascinating meeting and engagement of cultures. The exhibition was first shown in London and here the curator, El Glaoui’s daughter, Touria, talks about her father’s relationship with Churchill and how the ‘old warrior’ influenced her father’s art. Today El Glaoui’s work is highly prized, but Touria explains how he owed his career to Churchill, who discovered him in 1943, and talked his reluctant parents into sending him to art school in Paris.

The Art of Diplomacy: Winston Churchill and the Pursuit of Painting’ exhibition was jointly organised by the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, Georgia and the Churchill family, in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of Churchill’s death. Curated in part from never-previously exhibited, personal Churchill family collections, ‘The Art of Diplomacy’ explores the relationship between Churchill’s strategic decision-making and his evolving practice as an artist. It brings together over thirty of Churchill’s paintings – including the famous ‘The Tower of the Katoubia Mosque’, now owned by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – together with photographs, letters, films, and personal belongings as it guides the viewer from Churchill’s early artistic career in the late 1910s to the ‘wilderness years’ and, finally, to his late works.

The exhibition was originally scheduled to close on 1 February but has been extended, on tour, and is now making is eighth and final stop in Savannah, Georgia, after touring round the state in cities ranging from Atlanta and Athens, to Rome and LaGrange. It closes on 26 July 2015.

To purchase the catalogue and narrated audioguide, click here.