June 21, 2013

Finest Hour 137, Winter 2007-08

“When You Care Enough”: Joyce Hall and Hallmark’s Churchill Connection

By Philip and Susan Larson

Years ago the Larsons, who chaired our 2006 Chicago conference, purchased a box of Hallmark Christmas cards adorned with Churchill paintings, and other Hallmark items bearing his art. Whence the pairing of Churchill and Hallmark? They set out to learn the story.

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The unassuming Midwesterner who first presented the art of Winston Churchill to the American people was Joyce C. Hall of Kansas City, who with his brothers built the internationally renowned Hallmark Greeting Card Company, known by one of the most famous slogans in advertising: “When you care enough to send the very best.” Hall, who preferred to be known as “J.C.,” exposed Americans to a new side of the statesman he so respected—a side few previously knew existed—through greeting cards, books, exhibitions and television.

J.C. Hall was a graduate Churchillian. His appreciation for Sir Winston was summarized on the jacket of Hallmark’s book Never Give In!: “He was the unquenchable voice of freedom… [his] wisdom extended beyond the pressing problems of peace and war.”

Hall’s efforts earned him a CBE (Commander of the Most Noble Order of the British Empire) in 1961, for contributions to Anglo-American good will…and specifically for his part in bringing an exhibit of paintings by Sir Winston Churchill to the United States.”¹ WSC, who considered his accomplishments “a remarkable success,”² enjoyed a close personal friendship with J.C. Hall and his family for nearly twenty years.

J.C. built his company from scratch, believing that “selling ideas is the most critical of all jobs.” Here he related to Churchill, who, Hall said, “was one of the greatest salesmen who ever lived. He sold the free world on arming itself—probably the most important selling job ever accomplished.”³

Hall believed that a greeting card is a social custom, which “must be on a high level.”⁴ He emphasized quality art, believing “that one of Hallmark’s responsibilities was to the elevation of American taste.”⁵ The New York Times recognized that Hallmark had “done more than anything else to make America art conscious. It has brought art to a popular level.”⁶

Hall’s association with Churchill began when he attended the famous “Sinews of Peace” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946. With his son Donald, he and other Kansas City civic leaders had been invited to the reception. Donald remembers Churchill’s “firm handshake and direct eye contact.”⁷

Shortly after Fulton, Churchill published his essay, Painting as a Pastime, in book form, and J.C. Hall immediately thought about publishing WSC’s paintings on Hallmark cards. Churchill had never sold his work commercially, merely presenting paintings to friends and family. Only one painting had been sold, and that for charity. But when WSC was contacted and heard the company name, he gave his approval: “That’s a good firm. Make a deal with them I am delighted at the opportunity of having my paintings exhibited through the medium of Christmas cards.” Hallmark selected twelve paintings for use on cards.⁸ The New York Times of 13 August 1950 called this “the Churchill Coup.”

When the original paintings arrived in Kansas City to be photographed for reproduction, the National Association of Art Directors was meeting locally. J.C. offered them a private showing at his home, not revealing the artist’s identity. The reception was remarkable, one prominent director saying, “Whoever the artist is, he’s more than a Sunday painter.”⁹

At Churchill’s invitation, Hall, his wife Elizabeth and son Donald visited Chartwell in June 1950. Churchill “greeted us rather brusquely,” J.C. recalled, wearing his “siren suit.” Solicitous of Mrs. Hall, “he escorted Elizabeth to the dining room as we tagged along.” WSC also observed that Donald, who had just graduated from Dartmouth, “would not need whiskey for energy, like older men.”

Later, as they toured the grounds, the Halls observed the “maggot moment,” when WSC flung a handful of maggots to his golden orfe. Suddenly he asked Elizabeth, “with the mischievous grin of a small boy,” if she would like to do the same. Not squeamish, “she held out her hand, and he plopped about a dozen maggots in it.” The fish dined royally that day.

On his perambulations, Hall wrote later, Churchill showed “affection for his ‘darlings’ as he called them”— wild pets, like birds and swans. “This was the man who had dared Hitler to cross the Channel when Britain had little to fight with but courage.” It was remarkable to see such a man “so gentle with a little wild bird.” The Halls found Churchill “amazingly vigorous” at 75, walking briskly up and down Chartwell’s sloping lawns.

Churchill asked Hall if he was happy with sales of the greeting cards. J.C. replied that he was delighted: “Sales had exceeded our highest forecast {Alk million the first year) [Churchill’s] only criticism was that they flattered his paintings.” He expressed great curiosity about the project—reproduction, distribution, shipping, sales—and what would happen if the product didn’t sell. Hall said he’d not have to worry about that.

Joyce Hall was impressed by Churchill’s human side, as when he was told of the comments of the art directors back in Kansas City. WSC’s daughter Sarah, who was also present, said compliments about his paintings pleased her father “more than anything said about his writing and statesmanship.” Hall had brought along a presentation album “dedicated to Winston Churchill,” which his art department had designed: the twelve paintings along with a sixteen-line poem. WSC was impressed, saying, “You have quite an organization.”

With that, Hall observed, “his voice cracked and tears came to his eyes. I think he hoped we hadn’t noticed them….the tears disappeared and he slammed the album shut. His moods changed abruptly, but it was easy to see he was a deeply sentimental man.”¹⁰

In 1962 Hall and his 12-year-old granddaughter Libby experienced another touching moment when visiting Sir Winston in a London hospital, where he was after a fall. When he heard Libby had been left in the car he was irritable, saying to his private secretary, Anthony Montague Browne: “Why didn’t you bring her up?” Libby duly appeared, somewhat shy in front of this 87- year-old stranger in a wheelchair. With a smile WSC extended his hands, and Libby put her hands in his. “For about fifteen minutes, Libby and Sir Winston had a much freer conversation than I had had with him,” Hall recalled. “They said goodbye like old friends.”¹¹

Following the success of the Christmas cards, Hall wished to produce a special television show on “Churchill the Artist,” and a traveling exhibit of his paintings. He had been involved in TV since the Forties, believing that its programs were not providing enough educational value, and that TV advertising should be of a higher quality—”no hard sell or slapstick…for our guests” (as he referred to the TV audience).

Having been impressed with Sarah Churchill’s acting in “The Philadelphia Story,” Hall offered her the moderator’s role in the forthcoming show. J.C. considered Sarah an “intelligent and engaging personality.” The first show was entitled, “Hallmark Presents Sarah Churchill,” and its first guest was Eleanor Roosevelt. Soon the title was changed to one soon to be well-known: the “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” with Sarah as hostess. A television pioneer, the program won seventy-eight Emmy Awards and the only Emmy presented to a sponsor.¹²

Sarah once spent a two-week holiday at the Hall vacation home in Grand Lake, Colorado. J.C, she said, was “a rather special man [with] unlimited generosity. .. [who] believed in the alliance between England and America…” The Halls were equally fond of Sarah, “a sweet, friendly girl.. .as devoted to her father as he was to her.”^ Churchill presented his painting, “Jamaican Beach” to the Halls for their kindness to his daughter.

Later, the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” created an hour-long television version of Painting as a Pastime, entitled “The Other World of Winston Churchill,” which coincided with Sir Winston’s 90th birthday. “It is not just about painting,” Hall told the Kansas City Times. “It contains a lot of Sir Winston’s personal philosophy.”¹⁴ The producer was Jack Le Vien, who was responsible for the famous Churchill film documentaries, “The Valiant Years” and “The Finest Hours.”

The “Other World” was telecast exactly on WSC’s birthday, 30 November 1964, in the United States, Britain and the Commonwealth. Hall made it available to schools around the world, and on 29 November 1974, on the eve of the Churchill Centenary, a subsequent film was shown entitled “The Gathering Storm,” with Richard Burton playing the part of Churchill.

Joyce Hall thought Churchill’s paintings should be exhibited, but Sir Winston was at first against it, “feeling his paintings were not good enough.” He painted for pleasure and did not want to appear as a professional.¹⁵ Not one to be discouraged, Hall approached WSC’s old comrade and fellow painter, Dwight Eisenhower, who gave the idea his full endorsement, assuring Churchill that this would be a “personal tribute to you” and would “strengthen the friendship” between their two countries.¹⁶

Ike’s letter was delivered to WSC personally in June 1957 by Hall and Dr. Franklin Murphy, Chancellor of the University of Kansas. An amusing dialogue ensued. Churchill, who had been Chancellor of Bristol University, told Murphy he was very young; in Britain to be a chancellor, “you’ve got to be at least sixty years old.” When the 41-year-old Murphy refused a cigar, professing that his youth excused him from “cigars of this size and strength,” WSC shot back: “Mr. Murphy, these cigars are made for boys like you and me.” To Hall, Sir Winston confided: “I like your friend—even if he is an Irishman.” Churchill went on to lecture his visitors on the serious English rite of an afternoon tea. “However, my dear doctor,” he grinned at Murphy, “it is not to be taken too seriously. I’m going to have whiskey—how about you?” Murphy accepted.¹⁷

Sarah Churchill cemented the arrangement by convincing her father and family, “that the world should know this brilliant aspect of himself. …I believed art must travel and I was tired of the people who still thought of him as only a war leader.”¹⁸

The exhibit, “Winston Churchill The Painter,” was opened by the British Ambassador at the Nelson Gallery in Kansas City on 22 January 1958, with thirty-five Churchill paintings on display. Joyce Hall conceived and sponsored the entire show. Later it traveled to the Detroit Institute of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Art Gallery of Toronto and, by special request, museums in Australia and London. Viewers numbered over half a million.

Former President Harry Truman previewed the Kansas City exhibit: “Damn good,” he said of his old friend’s oils. “At least you can tell what they are and that is more than you can say for a lot of these modern painters.” Hall asked Truman if he would like to paint. “Hell, no,” said Give-‘Em-Hell Harry, “but I could beat these moderns.”¹⁹ In Washington, headlines read: “The Joyce Halls accompany the Eisenhowers on exhibit tour, which the President sums up as ‘wonderful.'”²⁰ At last Truman and Eisenhower had found something to agree about!

Joyce Hall’s bold vision did stir a “seething debate” among the cognoscenti. “Is it really art?” wondered Time magazine. One museum director suggested that it was a “public relations hoax.” A representative of the Carnegie Institute said, “I understand Mr. Churchill is a terrific bricklayer too, but nobody is exhibiting bricks this year.” The Art Museum in Cincinnati, one of Churchill’s favorite American cities, quipped: “This is ‘Churchill art,’ not just art.”²¹ The Chicago Art Institute director sniffed, “We have certain professional standards; we do not show the work of amateurs.” Public reaction was so strong that he was out of office within a week.²²

Avoiding pointless discussions among art critics, the Nelson Gallery honestly maintained that “we are representing another side of one of the greatest personalities of our time.” Equally open-minded, the Metropolitan in New York declared, “Think how eager we would be to see the paintings of an Alfred the Great, were they to be discovered tomorrow.”²³

British historian John Ramsden made an insightful observation: “…the importance of the art exhibition of 1958 was precisely as a substitute for the real presence of Churchill, who was clearly now never going to visit, but whose creative art could be both a symbol of his greatness and an almost transcendental presence, much as his broadcast words had been in 1940.”²⁴

Private secretary Anthony Montague Browne, who knew Sir Winston was grateful for Hall’s bringing this new adventure into his life at such an advanced age, had a unique perspective and apprecition for J.C.: “He was the only major tycoon I have met of whom no-one spoke anything but good.” Montague Browne “stayed with J.C. on a number of occasions in Kansas City and grew very fond of him. One had to be careful not to admire an object because it would be promptly given to you Joyce really was remarkable.”²⁵

Interestingly, Montague Browne believed that J.C. Hall “was too awed in [WSC’s] presence to do himself justice.” His son Donald says that his father was expressing respect rather than awe. He felt they appreciated one another from a level of friendship and a sense of accomplishment.²⁶ And J.C. was a thoroughly unpretentious man. Until he was 84, he drove his vintage Buick to work, and at home wore a jump suit reminiscent of his old friend Sir Winston.

Beyond his affection for the man, Hall’s unselfish promotion of WSC’s paintings embodied a higher vision: an appreciation for an unseen side of Churchill’s character, the hobby that had given him much solace in sterner days. Like everyone, he appreciated what Churchill had done for liberty; but he had the where-withal to express his respect.

J.C. was a prime organizer of the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library in Fulton, Missouri, co-chairing the project with Henry Luce of Time-Life and honorary co-chairmen Presidents Johnson, Eisenhower and Truman. In 1964, when he opened the Hallmark Gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York, Hall made Churchill the subject of one of its first exhibits: “a monumental figure whose public life spanned the reigns of six sovereigns.”²⁷

The following year, Hall was honorary president of People-to-People International, which sponsored the Churchill Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, replete with artifacts and Churchill oils, a replica of the Chartwell study and a model of Blenheim Palace. Hall financed the entire exhibit, insisting there be no advertising. Proceeds were devoted to “teaching Churchill’s philosophy of individual freedom.” It was the largest collection of memorabilia assembled up to that time.²⁸

Hall’s long and warm relationship with Churchill (he even sent a sympathy note when WSC lost his poodle, Rufus II)²⁹ assured that the Earl Marshal of England would invite him to the Churchill funeral in 1965. Former President Eisenhower stopped in Kansas City specifically to pick him up in a White House aircraft, and they flew to London together.³⁰

In 1984, when sculptor Oscar Nemon created the famous “Married Love” sculpture of Winston and Clementine at Chartwell, he placed a copy in Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza in part as a tribute to Joyce Hall. Sir Winston’s granddaughter Edwina Sandys and the Duke of Marlborough attended the unveiling.³¹

Joyce Hall and Winston Churchill were drawn together out of strong sense of achievement. Each in his own way strove to be the best at what he did. Each had a strong respect for the arts. For Churchill, painting was an escape from the stark reality of his high-powered life. For Hall, the arts were a payback to the humble folk from whom he rose to enormous success. With his great entrepreneurial skill, Hall found a way to mate his personal interests, with passion and affection, to those of his great friend across the Atlantic.

Endnotes

1. Kansas City Times, 9 May 1961.

2. WSC to Joyce C. Hall, 16 May 1959. Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

3. Joyce C. Hall, When You Care Enough (Kansas City: Hallmark, 1979), 234.

4. Ibid., 215.

5. Harper’s, December 1971.

6. The New York Times, 13 August 1950.

7. Donald J. Hall to the authors, Kansas City, 25 June 2007.

8. Hall, op. cit., 172.

9. Ibid., 172.

10. Ibid., 172-77.

11. Ibid., 232.

12. Ibid., 177, 180-81, 214-15, 223.

13. Churchill, Sarah. Keep on Dancing: An Autobiography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), 224.

14. Kansas City Times, 1 August 1964.

15. The New York Times, 19 January 1958.

16. Hall, op. cit., 227.

17. Ibid., 228.

18. Churchill, Sarah, op. cit., 217.

19. Kansas City Times, 31 January 1958.

20. Kansas Star, 24 April 1958.

21. Time, 2 October 1958.

22. Chicago Tribune, 22-29 April 1958.

23. Time, 10 February 1958.

24. Ramsden, John, Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and His Legend since 1945 (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 471.

25. Montague Browne, Sir Anthony, Long Sunset: Memoirs of Winston Churchill’s Last Private Secretary (London: Cassell, 1995),
319-20.

26. Hall, Donald J., to the authors, 25 June 2007.

27. Hall, Joyce, op. cit., 233.

28. The New York Times, 21 March 1965. Mary Eisenhower is currently chairman of People-to-People, which was founded by President Eisenhower in 1956.

29. J.C. Hall to WSC, 20 August 1962. Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

30. Kansas Star, 28 January 1965.

31. Pearson, Robert, and Pearson, Brad, The J.C. Nichols Chronicle (Lawrence, Kansas: Country Club Plaza Press, 1994), 243. Nichols was the developer of Country Club Plaza.