January 17, 2009

One of Sir Winston’s most prolific portrayers,
Cooper succeeded where many failed: WSC liked all his works.

by Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel
Finest Hour 95

WHILE searching for bargain books and autographs in London two years ago, my husband and I happened upon an old Chelsea bookshop. Already we had looked up, telephoned or visited every Churchilliana dealer we could find, but had bought only a signed 1901 photo. Entering the ancient premises we asked if they had any autographs. “Maybe up on the fourth floor,” the clerk replied. Following his pointing finger, we found and panted up a steep, narrow, Dickensian staircase. At the topmost level we emerged and, turning, saw hanging high above us in the stairwell an oil portrait of Winston Churchill at Chartwell, gazing at us with a sweet, pensive expression.

It was the consummate serendipitous experience. Had we set out to find such a portrait we would never have looked in an out-of-the way antiquarian bookshop. Those who have encountered Destiny in her boldest garb will know what we felt: this portrait was meant for us.

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The proprietors knew little of the artist or the history of the work. In fact, a continuing mystery is the number “59” affixed in the upper left corner‹perhaps a sale or inventory number. On the back is painted “Chartwell 1947.” Only after returning to the United States and scrambling for information did an outline emerge of the artist responsible: the prominent portraitist A. Egerton Cooper (1883-1974). We were especially fortunate to reach (via Finest Hour) the artist’s son, Peter. C. Cooper, who is Director of the Grosse Pointe Art Gallery near Detroit, Michigan.

The impetus behind the 1947 portrait is not known, but there is an anecdote connected to it, related by a former owner. It is said that during his first long sitting for the study, Churchill, bored with inactivity, fell to bedeviling poor Cooper. Raconteurs tend to embellish their Churchill stories, and it’s quite likely that the exchange was went two ways, with a deal of good-natured joking, since Churchill had sat for Cooper before. In fact, Cooper had painted one of the Prime Minister’s favorite portraits, the famous “Profile for Victory” (cover, Finest Hour 75).

Our present cover portrait is unusual in that it shows Churchill at home in a familiar and informal setting: a sunny corner of Chartwell. Behind him is a large model of a ship, inventoried today as “an eighteenth or nineteenth century three-masted sailing barge” and housed in Churchill’s Chartwell studio.

Cooper’s portrait is 30 by 24 inches unframed, and executed in a very loose, painterly style akin to that adopted by Churchill in his own paintings. Sir Winston was influenced by the impressionistic brushwork of Sir John Lavery and Richard Sickert; Cooper was of the same generation. One can see the similarity in execution of Cooper’s portrait to Churchill’s own 1928 painting, “Tea at Chartwell” (Coombs #35, p103), which portrays the Sickerts, Diana Mitford, Eddie Marsh, Diana Churchill and Clementine Churchill seated around the table with Winston). The face of Churchill looking over his shoulder at the viewer bears an uncanny resemblance to Cooper’s portrait, particularly the bold planes of light on the face.

Our cover portrait is actually the first version of a life-size oil which would be created later at Cooper’s studio. Being a preparatory work for a more formal painting, is called a “study,” but it has all the substance and merit of a finished work of art. The final, full-scale portrait is shown in the photo above, loaned by Peter Cooper, with his father standing beside the completed painting. One can see that it is more technically refined and realistically detailed than the earlier study. This larger painting was completed 1950 and given to the Junior Carlton Club, whose records, unfortunately, are not sufficient to reveal the donor. It is illustrated in Gentleman’s Clubs of England, in the Club dining room, and was pictured in color on a Christmas card issued by the Club in the Fifties. The Carlton and Junior Carlton merged in 1977, and the painting now hangs at the Carlton Club building at 69 St. James’s Street. Adjacent to it, on the same wall, hangs a portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill.

Both father and son were members of the Carlton, certainly the most famous political club of modern times. Formed in 1832 by opponents of the Reform Bill, its tables have traditionally been crowded with Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers. Winston Churchill was elected to membership in 1925, after he had “re-ratted,” as he put it, returning to the Tories following twenty years as a Liberal.

The Carlton Club actually has two Cooper portraits of Churchill, the second being the aforementioned “Profile for Victory.” According to Cooper’s son, the “Profile” was acquired through the generosity of Sir Edward Mortimer Mountain (1872-1950), Chairman of Eagle Star Insurance Company, who donated the portrait in 1948. Sir Brian was a member of the Carlton Club and the Royal Auto Club (where Cooper’s portraits of the Dukes of Connaught and Kent hang), and had himself been painted by Cooper, a close friend who often joined him for salmon fishing in Scotland.

Cooper’s “Profile” had a curious inception. One evening in 1942, Cooper was at the Arts Club in Dover Street playing billiards with a group of members. Among these was the distinguished sculptor William Reid Dick, King’s Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland and President of the Royal Society of British Artists. Dick had done busts of George V and the model for his memorial at Westminster after the King’s death. His later subjects would include the Duke of Windsor, George VI, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Princess Elizabeth, a model for Kitchener Memorial in St. Paul’s, and the statue of President Roosevelt in Grosvenor Square.

In the midst of shooting billiards, Dick related that he had been commissioned to sculpt a bronze of Churchill, who had protested that he didn’t have the time, but the King had prevailed upon WSC to meet the sculptor. Dick said he would soon be going to Downing Street to take preliminary measurements. Cooper became excited at this and, eager for a chance to see the great man firsthand, asked if he might accompany Dick in the capacity of an assistant. Dick agreed, the arrangements were made, and on the assigned day the two departed for Number Ten.

The meeting came off without a hitch. Churchill sat while Dick took his measurements and read them off to Cooper, who quickly recorded them as he quickly sketched Churchill’s profile. What had come to Cooper’s mind was a series of “Profile” biographies of prominent persons in the Observer. After finishing his sketch, Cooper wrote below it, “Profile For Victory.” Then, taking a calculated risk, he showed it to Churchill. After some small talk and a reasonable interval, he asked if he might paint the PM’s portrait in that pose. Churchill grumbled and puffed, remarking that Cooper was not a sculptor and must have therefore come under false pretenses to make this request. Nonetheless he soon calmed down and must have admired the sketch, for he did indeed consent to sit for Cooper. The resulting portrait, considered by Cooper to be his finest work, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1943 and later published as a morale-boosting poster for the general public. The painting itself was purchased by Cooper’s friend Sir Edward Mountain, who, according to Cooper’s son, commissioned several signed reproductions of the painting from Cooper for “important persons in the UK and overseas.”

Many eminent artists have executed portraits of Winston Churchill, but it is doubtful there is any artist who has painted more than A. Egerton Cooper. Like most painters of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, little documentation is available on Cooper, but it is worthwhile from the perspective of art history to record something about this talented artist, born the same year as Churchill himself.

Cooper showed artistic talent early, exhibiting (for the first of forty times) at the Royal Academy at eighteen and graduating on a scholarship from London’s Royal College of Art in 1911. While still a student, Cooper entered a competition for which John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was one of the judges. Sargent was perhaps the most celebrated artist of his generation, called by Rodin “The Van Dyck of our times.” Impressed by the young artist’s work, Sargent voted for Cooper, who came in second. Fortuitously, Sargent asked Cooper to work with him at his studio, the famous 31-33 Tite Street in Chelsea which had belonged to James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Cooper spent about a year there as Sargent’s assistant, doing backgrounds and details for his paintings. What the master passed along to his disciple is evident on our cover.

When the Great War came, “Fred” Cooper joined the famous 28th County of London Volunteer Regiment, the Artists Rifles. At the end of the war he was made official artist to the R.A.F. He became an expert in the art and technique of large scale aerial camouflage, sketching and painting landscapes from a variety of aircraft. Some are now at London’s Imperial War Museum.

One of Cooper’s R.A.F. friends was Dr. Barnes S. Wallis, a leading British aircraft designer after World War I, and responsible for the famous Wellington bomber. Wallis’s most famous invention was the “bouncing bomb,” popularly known as the Dam Buster, which wrought havoc on German dams of the Ruhr River. A 1954 motion picture called “The Dam Busters” starred Michael Redgrave as Wallis. It was filmed at the Wallis house, where some of Cooper’s paintings can be seen hanging on the walls.

While training Army recruits in 1917 near Romford, Essex, Cooper met his future wife. Her parents entertained local officers at their home. After getting to know the young man and learning he was an artist, his future father-in-law referred to him as “Peter the Painter,” and Cooper was “Peter” to his friends and family the rest of his life.

An odd link lies behind this anecdote. One morning in early 1911, Churchill, then Home Secretary, was called dripping from his bath to the telephone and informed that a gang of anarchists were surrounded at 100 Sidney Street, Whitechapel. Their leader, apparently absent, was the infamous Peter Piaktow, aka “Peter the Painter,” so-named because he, like Hitler, had once been a house painter. Churchill dispatched the Scots Guards and, throwing on his clothes, soon arrived in person. It was a scene of intense tumult, with barrages exchanged between the rebels, Guards and police. William Manchester believes that Churchill’s inspiration for the tank came at this moment, as he speculated whether to storm the hideout using metal shields. In the end, the house caught fire and the anarchists were incinerated. This historical drama so imprinted itself on the public mind that seven years later it inspired the nickname of Cooper, who ironically was also destined to play a role with Churchill.

Cooper’s career progressed and his reputation spread; he was primarily a portraitist, but also painted landscapes, coastal and harbor views, and racing scenes including the Derby and Ascot. His contact with the Royal Family came in the 1920s when an American painter friend was asked to portray George V’s horses. Since he painted only horses, he asked Cooper to paint the backgrounds. On Sunday mornings, the two of them would confer with the King, who, it is said, used their meetings as a reason to avoid attending church with Queen Mary. Instead the three of them would hold a pleasant rendezvous at Buckingham Palace, leisurely drinking Black Velvets (half Guiness, half Champagne) while they discussed the work in progress!

Over the course of his career Cooper painted countless notable persons, including two portraits of George VI commissioned in 1939. One depicts the King in Naval attire, the other in uniform of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. They hang respectively in the Sea Cadets Barracks and Hounslow Barracks. After his preliminary study of George VI at the Palace, Cooper worked on the portraits in his studio at 27 Glebe Place, Chelsea. The King’s military medals and decorations were delivered for him to copy at a time when the Blitz was in full swing, and Cooper was in a state of nervous anxiety lest they be blown to bits, not to mention himself.

Another Royal commission took place at the 1954 Light Brigade Ball, a centennial celebration honoring the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava in the Crimean War. His large canvas, entitled “The Queen and The Queen Mother at the Light Brigade Ball,” depicts the Hyde Park Hotel ballroom filled with whirling figures, the Queen and Princess dancing with their partners. The Queen examined the developing painting and chatted with Cooper, who was working in white tie and tails at his easel alongside the orchestra. His son, who owns a second copy of this painting, relates that Cooper generally looked more like a retired British Colonel than an artist, and always dressed to the nines, even in his studio.

Lloyd’s of London owns the penultimate Cooper Churchill portrait. Churchill’s connection with Lloyd’s originates with his father-in law, Colonel Henry Montague Hozier (1838-1907), an army officer and pioneer in military intelligence. Like Churchill, Hozier was a military correspondent: he covered the Austrian-Prussian War for The Times and was a prolific writer of military history. In 1874 Hozier left the army to become Secretary of Lloyd’s, a position he held for thirty-two years. One of his most significant innovations was setting up wireless stations to monitor sea traffic, a system which in 1911 put Lloyd’s in touch with First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. From that time, Lloyd’s shipping information was routinely passed to the Admiralty, where it played a vital intelligence role during the First World War. (See also “Churchill and Lloyds” by David Boler, Finest Hour 67.)

In 1944 Lloyd’s elected Churchill an Honorary Member of their Society, the fifth so honored after Marconi, Admiral Beatty, Lord Haig and Admiral Sturdee. Too busy at the time attend the ceremony, the PM later made a public appearance at Lloyd’s in 1948 for a dinner in the Captain’s Room. A press photo of the dinner shows Lady Churchill, Sir Eustace Pulbrook (Chairman of Lloyd’s), Sir Winston and Lady Pulbrook.

Anticipating the approach of his eightieth birthday in 1954, Lloyd’s commissioned a portrait of Churchill by A. E. Cooper. It was one of several commissioned by various artists for that occasion, not all of which had happy repercussions. But of Cooper’s work Lloyd’s said with relief, “he actually liked it!” This portrait was again sited at Chartwell, Churchill seated tranquilly beneath an old oak, symbolic perhaps of his own evolutionary status in life. The painting hangs at the entrance to the famous company restaurant, the Captains’ Room, situated below the Underwriting Room at Lloyd’s 1 Lime Street headquarters. The Captain’s Room had its beginnings in a seventeenth-century coffee house owned by Edward Lloyd, where the firm had its inception.

The final Cooper portrait of Churchill, owned by Cadbury Schweppes, is displayed in the firm’s executive directors offices, which since 1992 have been at 25 Berkeley Square, London. This painting was purchased by Schweppes from the artist in 1967 when the firm was at 2 Connaught Place‹another site with significant Churchill connections.

From 1883 to 1892, during Winston’s formative schooldays at Brighton and Harrow, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill lived at 2 Connaught Place. Winston was his father’s epigone, pasting press cuttings and cartoons of Lord Randolph in scrapbooks. To Connaught Place Winston addressed his admiring, yearning letters to his father, who in 1886 reached his political pinnacle as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, only to resign abruptly before the year was out. In 1893, expenses forced Lord Randolph’s family to sell Connaught Place and move in with the dowager Duchess of Marlborough at 50 Grosvenor Square.

Begun in early 1953, Cooper’s Schweppes portrait was set aside when Churchill suffered a stroke, and was only completed after the great man’s death in 1965. Churchill here appears in stern visage, in full evening dress with decorations, seated in an armchair, the ubiquitous cigar in his left hand.

There is at least one copy of the Schweppes portrait in the United States. Beginning in the 1960s, Cooper made annual excursions to the American midwest, where Carl Weinhart, Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (whose secretary, Gloria, was married to Cooper’s son) brought him numerous clients. Robert Naegele, head of a Twin Cities advertising firm, and his wife both sat for Cooper. Being admirers of Churchill, they ordered a copy of the Schweppes portrait. The Naegeles later gave it to Lord Fletcher’s Restaurant in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where it still hangs today.

Like Churchill, F. Egerton Cooper lived a long and productive life, working until he died at age ninety. Some of his last words might equally have been appropriate to Churchill: “Do not tell them how old I am,” he would say with a smile: “They might not give me any more commissions.”

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For kind assistance in research the author wishes to thank Mr. Peter C. Cooper, Director of the Grosse Point Art Gallery in Michigan; Mrs. Gloria Cooper; the Carlton Club; Cadbury Schweppes Ltd.; Mr. David Boler of Lloyd’s of London; Mrs. Jean Broome; Mr. Richard Langworth; and Mr. Alan Bell, manager of Lord Fletcher’s Restaurant.