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Sir Winston Churchill, and Walter Sickert.

Sir Winston Churchill, and Walter Sickert. Three glass plate negatives of photographs taken at Chartwell, 29 August 1927: i) Group portrait of nine figures seated around the dining table at Chartwell including the Churchill family and Walter Sickert, photographed by Churchill's private secretary Donald Ferguson on 29 August 1927, the image used as as the basis for Churchill's painting 'Tea at Chartwell', 120 x 165mm ii) Winston Churchill seated in his study at Chartwell, smoking a cigar and looking direct to camera, probably on 29 August 1927, probably photographed by Sickert, the image used as the basis for Sickert's portrait of Churchill, 120 x 165mm iii) Variant of (ii) with Churchill looking to his right, 120 x 165mm PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVES THAT WERE USED AS THE BASIS FOR TWO FAMOUS PAINTINGS. On 29 August 1927 Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was hosting at Chartwell with the painter Walter Sickert amongst his guests. Sickert was a longstanding family acquaintance of Clemmie, and he had also known Eddie Marsh since the 1890s. By 1927 Sickert was also close to Winston Churchill; he gave Churchill painting lessons that notably improved his style, and also introduced him to new techniques such as the use of photographs as guides for painting. Churchill's enthusiasm was expressed in a letter to his wife, written just after a visit by Sickert: "I am really thrilled by the field he is opening to me. I see my way to paint far better pictures than I ever thought possible before. He is really giving me a new lease of life as a painter." (Winston to Clementine Churchill, 26 September 1927) Churchill's secretary took a photograph of the group that was gathered at Chartwell: along with Churchill and Sickert, this included Clemmie, their son Randolph and daughter Diana, his close friends and advisors Eddie Marsh and Frederick Lindmann, Sickert's wife the artist Thérèse Lessore, and Clemmie's cousin Diana Mitford. Churchill subsequently had this glass plate negative of the photographic image projected onto a canvas to guide his brush. The resultant painting, entitled 'Tea at Chartwell', remains in the collection at Chartwell House. The current group also includes two similar glass-plate negatives of Churchill smoking in his study that were taken, presumably by Sickert or at least at his instigation, to be the source of a painting. It is overwhelmingly likely that they were taken on the same day as Churchill is in the same clothes, including a distinctive pair of spats. It is also likely that two slightly different photos were taken so that Sickert would have two different angles of Churchill's head from which to work. Churchill's posture, the position of the cigar in his hand, and his clothing, are all identical to Sickert's famous informal portrait of Churchill that is now in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 4438). Sickert's portrait won widespread praise when it was exhibited at the Savile Gallery in 1928, and remains one of the most penetrating images of Churchill, but its somewhat louche representation of its subject was not appreciated by everyone (including Churchill himself). The current retrospective of Churchill's artwork at the Wallace Collection is a salutary reminder that painting was an important aspect of Churchill's rich and complex life. THESE NEGATIVES ARE A UNIQUE SURVIVING RELIC OF A CREATIVE MOMENT THAT BROUGHT TOGETHER CHURCHILL AND WALTER SICKERT, AND REVEAL THE INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN TWO PAINTINGS THAT BEGAN LIFE ON THE SAME DAY. PROVENANCE Grace Hamblin, OBE (1908-2002), private secretary to Sir Winston and Lady Churchill and the first administrator at Chartwell; acquired in the 1990s by the noted Churchill collector Major Alan Taylor Smith (1928-2019)

View 1 of Lot 56: Winston Churchill and Walter Sickert | Glass plate negatives used as guides for painting, 1927

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