From The Times, Monday, January 12, 1998

Some of Winston Churchill's paintings are filled with light, others with depression and self-doubt Last Thursday evening I went to the private view of Painting is a Pastime, the exhibition of Winston Churchill's paintings which will be open at Sotheby's in Bond Street until the end of this week. The reception included many people who had known Churchill when he was in power, and it was a nice touch that Sotheby's served Pol Roger, his favourite champagne.

I have never seen an exhibition of Churchill's paintings before, though I have quite often seen them individually on the walls of his friends or colleagues.

He is best known for his impressionist scenes of landscape, many of them done on holiday in the South of France. The characteristics of these landscapes did not change greatly from the early 1920s to the mid-1950s. They show the stylistic influence of Sir John Lavery, who taught him painting. Lavery describes them well: "Mr Churchill has been called a pupil of mine, which is highly flattering, for I know few amateur wielders of the brush with a keener sense of light and colour, or a surer grasp of essentials."

These paintings are cheerful, colourful and strongly lit, with the sun often falling on a blue Mediterranean. At their best, they are strongly composed. In 1952, when he was nearly 80, he could still produce as delightful a painting as his Cap d'Ail of that year. These holiday paintings are favourites of the public and now command a very high price. Even 20 years ago his painting of The Pope's Palace at Avignon sold for Pounds 26,000, a record at the time; last year his 1927 painting of Mimizan reached Pounds 150,000 at Christie's. These are works he enjoyed painting and they are thoroughly enjoyable to see. They represent the open and cheerful side of his character.

The Sotheby's exhibition also contains a small group of portraits. I have never seen any of these before and they came as a surprise. The landscapes and still lives have a very positive emotional quality. Almost without exception, the portraits are seen from a more melancholy or even tragic point of view. In this exhibition the only major postwar portrait is of Lady Churchill, painted in 1955 from what must have been a newspaper photograph of her launching the Indomitable in 1940.

"Indomitable" is very much a Churchillian word, as 1940 was Churchill's greatest year. This is therefore a tribute to Lady Churchill's spirit and to the support she gave him in Britain's time of trial. Yet it is not altogether a flattering portrait. Lady Churchill does indeed look indomitable but there is a disturbing tension in her face, and a marked contrast between the expression of the mouth and that of the eyes.

There are rather more prewar portraits, though still only a few. As I was walking around, I was very struck by the portrait of Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister when Churchill was first in Parliament; the portrait was painted in 1928-29 near the end of Balfour's life. It is placed near an earlier portrait, Lord Balfour with his Niece , which Churchill had painted in the mid-1920s.

Clearly the image is the same in both portraits, which may both derive from a holiday snapshot, but between the two portraits Balfour's expression has been softened and, in a strange way, deepened. In the first portrait Balfour looks like nothing more than a shrewd old clubman with a gaze of friendly but rather cautious appraisal. His niece looks subtly dissatisfied and somewhat arrogant.

The later portrait is much more interesting. It is painted in grisaille and Balfour looks like an elder statesman whose vast experience of the world has made him peer into the pit. I was reminded of the contrast between wisdom and horror that one sees in Francis Bacon's series of Popes. Balfour does not look quite as if he is going to scream, but he does look as if he is haunted by unbearable memories.

There are two important earlier portraits, both dating from a period shortly after the first world war. Lady Gwendoline Churchill is a study in that mild but chronic depression which some women suffer in middle life. Her face is shown in repose but not at peace. One half sympathises with her and half regrets her mood of frustration.

When Churchill paints oranges and lemons, that he last did in his 84th year in 1948, they are full of colour, vitality and enjoyment. When he paints people, they express the tragedy of human life. In his own life, he had to suffer the "black dog" of depression. In his landscapes and still lives there is no sign of depression. But in his portraits of his friends, it is the black dog that we see.

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