"How are you going to paint me? As a cherub or the Bulldog?” Winston Churchill famously asked the artist Graham Sutherland before work began on a portrait commissioned by the Houses of Parliament to celebrate the public figure’s 80th birthday.
“It entirely depends on what you show me, Sir,” Sutherland responded.
As it turns out, the Bulldog appears to have dominated the remaining process of creating studies and completion of the portrait, in 1954, with the painting famously being destroyed in a fire by the brother of Churchill’s secretary, a couple of years later.
Now a study for the final work, which Churchill described as "filthy and malignant", and whose destruction was captured on the television series The Crown, is due to be auctioned by Sotheby’s later this year, on the 150th anniversary of the British statesman's birth.
“Churchill could be a difficult sitter for artists,” says Bryn Sayles, Director of Modern and Post War British Art at Sotheby’s, who notes other commissions by William Orpen, Walter Sickert and Oswald Birley. She adds that the timing of this work added to the pressure of the situation as “[Churchill] had recently had a stroke and there was a lot of infighting within the Tory party, with mounting pressure on him to resign."
Graham Sutherland, Study of Sir Winston Churchill, 1954, oil on canvas (estimate £500,000-800,000) Courtesy Sotheby's
While the final portrait was an arresting depiction of the man facing the audience head-on, the study up for sale offers a more relaxed, intimate depiction of a man sat in afternoon sunlight. It is not known how many studies exist for the work, but the auction house says it is "one of the best surviving portraits of Churchill by Sutherland, relating to the commission", with others now held in Canada, at the Beaverbook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The work was gifted by Sutherland to a leading framer of the period, Alfred Hecht, who, in turn, gave it to its private owner.
The auction house is showing the work at the Oxfordshire home of the Churchill family, Blenheim Palace (from 16-21 April), where Churchill was born in 1874. It then heads off to New York City, where it will be on show 3-16 May, before going up for sale on 6 June, in London, with a presale estimate of £500,000 to £800,000.
A broad range of collectors is anticipated. Connoisseurs of Sutherland’s works will likely appreciate an example of the artist’s portraiture, which he turned to fairly late in his career, while interest in Churchill is both strong and international (indeed, some of the largest collections of memorabilia of Churchill are reportedly in the US).
“We also anticipate interest from collectors in portraiture because of the fallout over the eventual work and the way in which this captures the broader relationship between an artist and sitter- it offers a fascinating perspective on broader questions around who has the right to decide on whether a portrait is a successful rendering- the artist, the sitter, the public or indeed, art history,” says Sayles.