Sir Winston Churchill, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., HON. R.A.

Gifted by the Artist to Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and thence by descent to the present owner

David Coombs, Churchill, His Paintings, The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1967, cat. no.297, illustrated p.193 (dated as 1930s);
David Coombs with Minnie Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill's Life Through His Paintings, Chaucer Press, London, 2003, C297, p.226, illustrated fig.470.

Original canvas, pin holes are visible in the bottom corners and elsewhere to the extreme edge upon very close inspection, the most obvious in the bottom left hand edge. The canvas undulates very slightly in the bottom left hand corner. There is very minor surface dirt and very light traces of a possible mould, with one or two slight flecks of studio detritus visible upon close inspection. There are two very faint possible horizontal light surface scratches visible to the centre of the left hand side, only visible in raking light. This excepting the work appears in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of fluorescence and probable retouchings to the aforementioned pin holes along the extreme edge, as well as to the two aforementioned horizontal possible surface scratches, running c.4in. in length, with a few very minor additional felcks in the lower left corner. Housed in an ornate, gilt wood frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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 `I cannot pretend to be impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns’ (Sir Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., Aylesbury and London, 1949, p.24).

We are grateful to David Coombs for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

In this accomplished work, depicting the Venetian lagoon, Churchill captures in subtle tones the range of colour produced by the glow of the Mediterranean sun and the warmth and stillness of the day. The palette of sandy pinks and yellows contrast beautifully with the cool blues of the lagoon and the hazy hues of sky. The sea presented a perplexing subject for Churchill: ‘Look at the blue of the Mediterranean. How can you depict and record it? Certainly not by any single colour that was ever manufactured. The only way in which that luminous intensity of blue can be simulated is by this multitude of tiny points of varied colour all in true relation to the rest of the scheme. Difficult? Fascinating!’ (Churchill, op. cit., p.25).

Near Venice is based on a photograph which is held in the archives at Chartwell. Churchill had a strong affinity with Venice: he first visited in 1906 as part of his two-month tour of Europe and returned in 1908 for his honeymoon where he writes, `we have only loitered and loved’ (quoted in Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, William Heinemann Ltd, London,  p.200). In 1927, after his wife’s traffic accident, she chose Venice as the perfect location to recuperate.  Later in 1951, aged 77, he visited again with his family and it was during this trip that he painted Near Venice. He would spend the mornings working on his wartime memoirs and in the afternoons he would pursue his favourite pastimes of swimming at the Lido and painting. Another work of Venice painted during this trip and titled The Grand Canal in Venice was presented by Clementine Churchill to the Palace of Westminster after Churchill’s death in 1965. 1951 was a busy year for Churchill: on his return to England, he received a letter from Clement Attlee announcing a General Election and later that year, after a successful campaign, he was elected Prime Minister for the second time. 

Near Venice was gifted by Churchill to Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968) who was publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961.