That Churchill was distinctive in both persona and physical appearance helped make him easy to caricature.
It was a near-perfect relationship between satirists and subject. And throughout that time, Punch satirized Churchill in cartoons – more than 600 of them, the work of more than 50 different artists. That political career would last two thirds of a century, see him occupy Cabinet office during each of the first six decades of the twentieth century, carry him twice to the premiership and, further still, into the annals of history as a preeminent statesman. Punch or The London Charivari began featuring Churchill cartoons in 1900, when his political career was just beginning. After the ceremony, the portrait was stored unceremoniously in a Chartwell cellar until, with Lady Churchill’s approval, Churchill's longtime private secretary Grace Hamblin removed and burned it.
He asked his solicitor, “Is it or is it not a libel? I won’t go down in history looking like that.” To his secretary he remarked “I look like a down-and-out drunk who has been picked out of the gutter in the Strand.” At the ceremony Churchill duly thanked the Houses for their generous gift which he called “a remarkable example of modern art”, a designation he undoubtedly intended to be pejorative and which was understood with great laughter from the audience. Though he was willing to publicly acquiesce, privately he made his opinion well known. Churchill expressed his opinion that the portrait would “bring an element of controversy into a function that was intended to be a matter of general agreement between the Members” and was therefore “not suitable as a presentation from both Houses of Parliament.” Dismayed, Sutherland contacted Charles Doughty, the secretary of the commissioning committee, who, acting as intermediary, was able to convince Churchill that the ceremony should continue as planned for the sake of national morale. She thanked Sutherland and asked for a photograph to bring back to Churchill, whose response reached the painter the following day. Just 10 days before Churchill’s birthday and the portrait’s official presentation, Clementine went to see the painting.
The marquee event of the day was a televised ceremony in Westminster Hall where Churchill was presented with a portrait by Graham Sutherland, gifted to him jointly by the two Houses of Parliament. The cartoon shows Churchill, the painter, painting over a portrait he loathed.Ĭhurchill’s 80th birthday on 30 November 1954 was a day of national celebration. The artist is Michael Cummings (1919-1997), who worked for Punch for more than 30 years. This cartoon appeared thus on p.182 of the 2 February 1955 issue of Punch. His book is the first ever effort to definitively catalog, describe, and contextualize all of the many Punch cartoons featuring Churchill. Stiles, author of Churchill in Punch (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2022). Churchill comes from the personal collection of Gary L. This original printed appearance of a Punch cartoon featuring Winston S. Mystery Of The Lost Paintings airs on Sky Arts from Wednesday May 2.London: Punch, 1955.
#Winston churchill painting for his 80th birthday series
Other pictures being recreated for the series include Vermeer’s The Concert, which was stolen from a Boston museum in the 90s, Monet’s waterlily canvas, which was destroyed by fire at MoMA in the 50s, and one of Van Gogh’s four sunflowers, which was destroyed in Japan by US bombing during the Second World War. Their secretary Grace Hamblin admitted to burning the painting before her death in 2002. However, Churchill hated his depiction so much when it was unveiled that it was taken away and secretly burnt on the orders of his wife, Lady Churchill. Artists and technicians at Madrid-based studio Factum Arte working to recreate the picture (Sky Arts) The original, by Graham Sutherland, was commissioned in 1954 for the then Prime Minister’s 80th birthday. The picture is one of seven masterpieces being recreated by artists and technicians for Sky Arts series Mystery Of The Lost Paintings. A lost portrait of Sir Winston Churchill has been recreated for a new television series.
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