Here’s a fact for your next pub quiz. Sir Winston Churchill, wartime Prime Minister, cigar enthusiast and MP for 62 years, was also a seriously keen amateur painter. The proof is hanging in London right now, but not for much longer.
Winston Churchill: The Painter at the Wallace Collection is the first major retrospective of his paintings since his death. It brings together more than 50 works, and over half of them come from private collections that hardly ever go on public show.
If you’ve been meaning to go, this is your polite but firm nudge. Times and tickets are on the Wallace Collection website.
A statesman with a sketchbook
Churchill took up painting during a rough patch in the First World War and went on to describe it as a refuge for the mind in his essay Painting as a Pastime. He painted what he loved: his garden and home at Chartwell in Kent, sunny Mediterranean views, Moroccan cityscapes, still lifes, and even a few wartime scenes. His style is loose and generous with the paint, and curators have compared some of his landscapes to French masters such as Corot and Sisley. That’s not bad for a man with a day job.
What we love most is the message behind the show. Churchill wasn’t trained at an art school. He painted because it made him happy, and he kept at it for decades. If that isn’t permission for the rest of us to dig out the watercolours, we don’t know what is.
From easel to wall (no war cabinet required)
Perhaps you’ve got a stack of your own paintings on top of the wardrobe. Perhaps it’s a child’s first masterpiece, a holiday sketch or a canvas you finished during a rainy weekend and then hid out of modesty. Whatever it is, it deserves better than a drawing pin.
The right frame can make a hobby painting look gallery-ready:
- Give a watercolour room. A crisp white mount gives it breathing space and keeps the eye on the painting.
- Match the mood. A warm wood moulding suits a Chartwell-style garden scene.
- Let a canvas float. A canvas floater frame leaves the painted edges on show, so the work seems to hover inside the frame.
- Odd sizes welcome. Every frame is made to measure, so your slightly odd-sized seaside sketch won’t need squeezing into a standard frame.
Try before you hang
Not sure whether that bold gold frame is “stately home” or “too much”? Our made-to-measure frame designer lets you type in your artwork’s size, then play with frames, mounts and glazing while the preview updates as you go. Then use Room View to see your design on a wall. You can even upload a photo of your own room, so you’ll know it works above the sofa before you commit. Or press 3D and AR to turn your frame round on screen and, on a phone or tablet, see it on your own wall at its real size.
Painting on canvas? Have a look at our canvas floater frames. Or, if you’d rather print a favourite photo first, our print and frame service has you covered.
So here’s the plan
Catch Churchill before 29 November, come home inspired, and give your own art the wall space it deserves. As the great man might almost have said: never, never, never leave your paintings in a drawer.
The paintings and rooms pictured are illustrations, not works by Churchill. Exhibition details from the Wallace Collection.