Winston Churchill's Alter Ego

Cap d’Ail, Alpes-Maritimes, by Sir Winston Churchill, 1952 .

An exhibition in London re-introduces Churchill as a painter—a hobby he took up in the summer of 1915, amidst the depressive slump that followed his ousting from the Admiralty

By Sarah Hyde

Remarkably, it was not until he turned 40 that Winston Churchill entered an art gallery. Before then, the closest Churchill had come to art was an affection for cartoons. In the summer of 1915, however, he picked up a paintbrush that belonged to his sister-in-law Gwendoline. Recently fired as First Lord of the Admiralty, and extremely depressed, Churchill took a plunge into painting that lifted him out of the dark mood of the “black dog,” as he called it. Joy returned. READ ON