You've got to hand it to Winston Churchill
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILLLake Near Breccles in Autumn, c. 1930
oil on canvas, 22 x 29 in.
Churchill was age 40 when he began to paint. It was June 1915, shortly after his forced resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty following the disastrous Dardanelles campaign. One Sunday afternoon, his sister-in-law Lady Gwendoline handed him a paintbrush belonging to his young nephew. In his 1921 essay “Painting as a Pastime” Churchill recalled, “And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue.” Painting provided a refuge from the stresses of politics and journalism, and from what Churchill called “the black dog” of depression. Moreover, he saw painting as a testing ground for leadership strengths such as audacity, humility, foresight, and strength of memory. It became both a solace and a fascination, prompting Churchill to remark, "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."
