Remarkably, it was not until he turned 40 that Winston Churchill entered an art gallery. Before then, the closest Churchill had come to art was an affection for cartoons. In the summer of 1915, however, he picked up a paintbrush that belonged to his sister-in-law Gwendoline. Recently fired as First Lord of the Admiralty, and extremely depressed, Churchill took a plunge into painting that lifted him out of the dark mood of the “black dog,” as he called it. Joy returned.
And so began a treasured hobby that would keep Churchill happy and engaged for the rest of his life, one he describes in the charming Painting as a Pastime—two essays published in Strand Magazine in 1921, later gathered into a best-selling book in 1948. By the time of his death, in 1965, he’d created more than 600 works that now achieve eye-watering prices when they come up for sale. “Winston Churchill: The Painter,” opening next Saturday at London’s Wallace Collection, presents viewers with 90 of these “daubs,” as Churchill liked to describe them—wartime scenes, landscapes, still lifes, portraits, images of his home and garden.
