Churchill paintings now owned by UK
A MAJOR collection of Sir Winston Churchill’s paintings now belongs to the nation, 50 years after the wartime prime minister’s death.
The Churchill family offered the 37 works in lieu of £9,404,990 of inheritance tax, following the death of the politician’s last surviving child, Lady Mary Soames, last year.
All but two of the paintings – which span 1915 to the late 1950s – will remain at Chartwell, the Churchill family’s Kent home, which is open to the public, where they have been on loan.
One will remain in the Houses of Parliament and the other in the Churchill War Rooms.
Churchill produced more than 500 paintings and continued his hobby well into his 80s.
Lady Soames previously wrote that “painting literally ‘grabbed’” Churchill in 1915, when he was 41, “thereafter playing an increasing and abiding role in his life, renewing the source of his great inner strength and enabling him to face storms, ride out depressions and rise above the tough passages in his political life”.
As well as 37 of Churchill’s works, the collection also includes a painting by Sir John Lavery of the politician standing at his easel and the Aly Khan Gold Cup, which was won by Churchill’s horse, High Hat.
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said: “It is fitting that in the 50th year since his death these paintings by the great wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill will be displayed in three very significant locations that helped shape his life and gives us an opportunity to appreciate the artistic talent of a man who was a colossal figure in world politics.”