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

A gift from the Artist to his daughter Mary

London, M. Knoedler & Co., "Painting as a Pastime" by Sir Winston Churchill K.G., O.M., C.H., May - June 1977, number untraced;
London, Sotheby’s, Painting as a Pastime: Winston Churchill - His Life as a Painter, 5th - 17th January 1998, cat. no.16, illustrated p.87.

David Coombs, Churchill: His Paintings, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1967, cat. no.255, illustrated p.177 (as At Eton Hall, Chester);
Mary Soames, Winston Churchill: His Life as a Painter, William Collins Sons & Co., London, 1990, cat. no.16, illustrated p.53;
David Coombs and Minnie S. Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill's Life through his Paintings, Chaucer Press, London, 2003, cat. no.C255, illustrated p.26;
David Coombs and Minnie S. Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill His Life and His Paintings, Ware House Publishing, 2011, cat. no.C255, illustrated p.26.

Original canvas. On close examination there appear to be several small spots of paint loss at the centre of the left edge of the composition. There is a diagonal crease to the canvas, with resulting craquelure, in the lower right corner of the composition. There is some light surface dirt across the paint surface and evidence of minor frame abrasion. Subject to the above the work appears to be in very good condition. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of florescence, including but not limited to, scattered spots at the centre left of the composition, three areas in the grass at the foreground of the composition and three lines of florescence; one in the upper right corner, an other in the tree at the far left of the composition and the last along the left horizontal edge. The picture is presented in a painted wooden frame with acanthus leaf and beaded mouldings. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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'Until I began to paint, I had no idea how much the landscape had to show' (Churchill, 1925, quoted in David Coombs and Minnie S. Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill’s Life Through his Paintings, Ware House Publishing, Lyme Regis, 2011, p. 108)

Churchill delighted in painting garden landscapes of the great houses where his friends lived. As such, his works from the 1920s serve as a pictorial diary of Churchill’s travels throughout England during his time of leisure. He is seen at Breccles in Norfolk, Wilton House, Salisbury, Hever Castle and Sutton Place amongst many others.

This charming painting depicts the formal garden at Sutton Place, a Grade I listed Tudor manor house built in circa 1525, near Guildford. The property has since become well known as the house of J. P. Getty and Stanley J. Seeger. During Churchill’s life time, Sutton Place was owned by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, great friends of the Churchills. Sutherland himself was a bon viveur and in between travelling the world held popular parties at Sutton Place which he bought in 1919. Visitors included the Prince of Wales, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Churchill was a frequent visitor at both their Surrey home and their Scottish residence and painted both locations. It was to Dunrobin Castle that Churchill went after the tragic death of his daughter Marigold (only a couple of months after his own mother had died). Here he found distraction and solace in painting the Scottish highlands. As Churchill wrote in Painting as a Pastime: ‘Whatever the worries of the hour or threats of the future, once the picture has begun to flow along, there is no room for them in the mental screen’ (quoted in Coombs and Churchill, 2011, op.cit., p.85).

Formal gardens particularly appealed to Churchill. He wrote in Painting as a Pastime of how he delighted in the 'sunlit garden gleaming with light and colour' and how ‘every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems'. In the present work he captures the colours of a hazy summer’s afternoon, and by using a high perspective with a low horizon line, leads our eye down the neatly pruned line of ornamental trees to a statue in the distance. Churchill and Clementine were keen gardeners and re-designed the gardens at Chartwell to create rose gardens, terraces and orchards.  He commented in Painting as a Pastime in the pleasure gardening can give:  ‘Plant a garden in which you can sit when the digging days are done. It may be only a small garden, but you will see it grow. Year by year it will bloom and ripen…’ (Coombs and Churchill, ibid., p.70). Mary Soames inherited this love of gardening from her parents, landscaping her own garden at West House and keeping a garden diary. Her children `were all deeply envious of her perfect hostas and an ever-changing procession of tulips and lilies. She wanted something in flower at all seasons and even in this small garden she achieved it, all recorded in her five year gardening diary’ (Emma Soames, 2014). Even as a child, a letter to her mother shows her taking great pride in the garden at Chartwell: ‘Mummy darling, the foxgloves (white and ravishing) and the blue poppies are lovely, and the rose garden in a blaze of colour  … How I wish you were here to see all this’ (Mary Soames, A Daughter’s Tale, London, Doubleday, 2011, p.158).