Sutherland received 1,000 guineas in compensation for the painting, a sum funded by donations from members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. (570 mm x 440 mm), Purchased, 1990, NPG 6096, National Portrait Gallery, London.įig.2 Churchill in 1954 – portrait by Graham Sutherland (imperfect reproduction). In 1954, the English artist Graham Sutherland was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom. (Jonathan Jones, 3 November 2001, The Guardian)įig.1 Winston Churchill, by Graham Vivian Sutherland, pencil and wash, circa 1954, 22 1/2 in. This is a man alone, in the real wilderness years." There's also a sadness and sense of defeat, rather than the assertion of indomitability in the Churchill statue outside the Houses of Parliament. There's a sculpted quality to his sturdy bald head that reminds you of Roman busts. In 1954, painter Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) was specially commissioned by the House of Commons and the House of Lords to paint a portrait of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The man himself still has a stoic authority he might be the ancient Roman Cicero waiting to be murdered. The painting is black and rough, as if burnt, as if Churchill were emerging from the ruins of Europe, from a world not saved but shattered. Hokusai makes waves George Shaw curates Graham Sutherland the week in art. Old, grumpy, with an anger that no longer seems leavened by the humour and verbal creativity of the Churchill of legend, this is a reactionary curmudgeon surrounded by the shades of night. It's not simply that Sutherland's modernist tendencies irked the conservative tastes of the Sunday painter prime minister. This painted sketch of Churchill's head, a study for the lost, full–length painting, suggests why. In 1954, the English artist Graham Sutherland was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom. In 1954, the English artist Graham Sutherland was commissioned to paint a full-length portrait of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
The destruction of Sutherland's painting is one of the most notorious cases of a subject disliking their portrait. The finished painting was presented to Churchill. "Sutherland was commissioned by both Houses of Parliament to paint a full–length portrait of Churchill in 1954, for which this is a study. Winston Churchill hated Sutherlands depiction of him and subsequently Lady Spencer-Churchill had the painting destroyed. (345 mm x 311 mm) Given by the artist's widow, Mrs Graham Sutherland, 1980.
PERMALINK Sutherland's notoriously disliked painting of Winston Churchill
0 kommentar(er)
