Graham Sutherland's study for Winston Churchill's hated portrait goes up for auction

CNN
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It's not a painting, it's a humiliation! Winston Churchill (played by John Lithgow) angrily narrates famous painter Graham Sutherland (actor Stephen Dillane) in the first season of The Crown, Netflix's six-series dramatization of the English monarchy. Churchill speaks about his own portrait, commissioned to celebrate his 80th birthday, as it was unveiled at Westminster Hall in London in November 1954.

Churchill goes on to describe his appearance in the painting as a broken, drooping, pitiful creature, Sutherland as a Judas brandishing his murderous paintbrush, and concludes that the whole work is a betrayal of friendship and an unpatriotic, treacherous assault and cowardly on the part of individualism. LEFT!

The episode ends with Churchill's wife, Clementine (played by Harriet Walter), watching him burn on a bonfire outside their home.

Obviously, he wasn't a fan.

Although The Crown is not a documentary, it is true that the 80th birthday portrait Churchill described as dirty and malignant in a letter to his personal physician was burned.

I think he was quite vain about his image, explained Andre Zlattinger, vice-president of the United Kingdom and head of British and Irish modern art at Sothebys, during a press briefing. He had had a stroke in 1953, so for him (how he was perceived) was important at that time. He had won the 1951 election by a narrow margin, and there were many debates about him and his leadership.

While the painting itself was destroyed, a painted study of Churchill created by Sutherland in preparation for the infamous birthday portrait is now on display at Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom until April 21, in the room where Churchill was born 150 years ago. Sutherland gave the study to his friend Alfred Hecht, who kept it for the rest of his life before gifting it to the current owner. After its stay at the palace, it went to Sothebys New York and London, before being sold at auction for the first time. on June 6, where it is estimated at $800,000 ($997,000).

(Sutherland) captured it in a much more relaxed and intimate way, Zlattinger said of the study, a small canvas painted in oil. This is a very different depiction of the (later) painting which Churchill obviously did not like and which was subsequently destroyed.

Churchill was far from the only leader to micromanage his image, however; leaders have controlled and falsified their image for centuries. Sculptures of ancient Egyptian pharaohs were stylized to demonstrate their power. The pharaoh Hatshepsut of the 18th dynasty completely turned away from reality by having herself depicted with a male torso.

In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth I is perhaps the most obvious example of a leader distorting her image. Robert Blyth, senior curator of world and maritime history at the Royal Museums Greenwich, told CNN that after her 40s, Elizabeth simply didn't age. In The Rainbow Portrait, one of her most famous paintings, any wrinkles that a woman in her sixties might have had are carefully smoothed out.

Queen Victoria, crowned more than 250 years after Elizabeth, also used paint to disguise her age, although academic Ira B. Nadel wrote that her interest in photography ultimately made her intolerant of idealized or inaccurate portraits .

Blyth explains that, like Churchill, a touch of vanity led the image of monarchs to be tightly controlled; Who would want their portrait painted to look exactly like them?, he joked. However, leaders also had to ensure political stability. Elizabeth I was the end of the Tudor line, Blyth noted. The idea that his image reflected any fragility would have aroused suspicion.

Dr Caroline Rae, associate lecturer in art history at University College London, agrees. It was a time of great change, with people being beheaded, she told CNN. Mortality is something that causes instability. (Elizabeth) knows that things may not be as stable as one might think. She is in a precarious situation.

Churchill himself faced political precarity. An already tumultuous career brought him to Downing Street during the First World War, but he was dismissed almost as soon as the war ended. He became Prime Minister a second time in 1951, but his Conservative Party had a majority of only 17 seats, and in April 1955, six months after the birthday portrait debacle, Churchill resigned for health reasons.

There had been the Suez Crisis and Stalin had died in 1953, so there was a lot going on, Zlattinger said.

His health and political position at the time led him to exercise particularly tight control over how this portrait was created and perceived, Bryn Sayles, head of sales for modern British art and after, told CNN -war at Sothebys. But even in earlier commissions, Churchill was notoriously a very delicate model and wanted to be depicted in a particular way. For example, he asked the sculptor Jacob Epstein to remove some fat from under his chin (in one work), so from the beginning Churchill understood the importance of his image as a politician and was very clear about the how he thought this image should be presented to the public.

Historical photographs of the British royal family were also regularly altered, but this did not please everyone. Swiss historian Alexis Schwarzenbach reported that Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, returned her 50th birthday photo to photographer Cecil Beaton in 1950, with instructions to reduce the number of edits performed on his lips and chin. Just four years later, Churchill's very different reaction to his own imperfections led to the scene now immortalized in The Crown, a factor which, Sayles explains, ironically piqued buyers' interest in owning his portraits.

After The Crown episode and Gary Oldman's portrayal of Churchill in the film Darkest Hour, we literally had new collectors in the market looking for Churchill paintings because there was a resurgence of interest in him .

Although Churchill would certainly not have appreciated new attention being paid to his hated portrait, the study is proof that interest in one of Britain's most famous prime ministers is far from waning. be turned off.