At Chartwell, Sir Winston Churchill’s home of 42 years, now owned by the National Trust, lies his painting studio. Reached by a path through the green-gold gardens, it is a standalone building with a little doorway and a soaring ceiling, clearly a place of refuge, and recreation, but also of serious commitment. The walls display a hundred or so paintings, lit by a big window that gives on to the garden and the purple horizon of the Weald of Kent; his armchair is set at the easel, near his twisted paint-tubes, housed in a former cigar humidor. His bespoke painting overcoat is flung over the armchair, his drink of ‘mouthwash’ (a splash of whisky and a lot of soda) set ready.
It was here that Xavier Bray, director of the Wallace Collection, had his revelation. ‘He’s actually really, really good. I saw it when I stepped inside his studio, one day in the summer of 2020,’ says Bray. ‘I just felt an overwhelming sense of the man as an artist, seeing there all around me so many examples of his glorious eye for colour and his post-impressionist evocation of place and mood.’
Most popular
James Hanson
London doesn’t deserve Dawn Butler as mayor
