Portrait of Winston Churchill (Sutherland)
Portrait of Winston Churchill (Sutherland)
The Portrait of Winston Churchill was a painting by English artist Graham Sutherland that depicted the British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, created in 1954. It was disliked by Churchill and within a year it was destroyed.
Portrait of Winston Churchill (Sutherland)
In 1954, Sutherland was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. Sutherland received 1,000 guineas#Replacementbythepound) for the painting, a sum funded by donations from members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. The painting was presented to Churchill by both Houses of Parliament at a public ceremony in Westminster Hall on his 80th birthday on 30 November 1954.
Background
By the time the portrait had been commissioned, Churchill was an elder statesman nearing the end of his second period as prime minister. Sutherland had gained a reputation as a modernist painter through some recent successful portraits, such as Somerset Maugham in 1949. He was drawn to depicting subjects as they truly were without embellishment; some sitters considered his disinclination to flattery as a form of cruelty or disparagement to his subjects.
Reading List
Report Issue