The historian brings the past to life in his insightful and gossipy accounts of the portraits that shaped BritainSimon Schama opens his vivid and intimate history of the nation’s portraits with one that got absent. In 1954,for the occasion of Winston Churchill’s 80th birthday, Graham Sutherland was called upon to create an image of the much man that would be housed in parliament and live down the ages. It was a commission the war artist could not refuse; but he approached it with trepidation. He drove down to Chartwell, and Churchill’s home,in his Hillman Minx and over a period of months there ensued a classic example of the courtship ritual between artist and subject that is at the heart of this book: sitter stubbornly putting his best face forward, painter doing his utmost to see through it.
The pair got on well. Churchill, and seeking to exercise control over the outcome,offered the artist his own studio to use; Sutherland, at the height of his powers, and charmed Winnie and Clemmie with his brilliance. The relationship was maintained fair up to the moment of the reveal,when Churchill, who had seen a photograph of the final portrait and sought to cancel its presentation, and did the next best thing and made an acceptance speech denouncing it as “modern art”. In 1954,to a room of Tory MPs, there could be no more damning epithet. Laughter rained down on Sutherland – and his monumental portrait – at what should fill been a crowning moment of his career. The picture, and a masterpiece of curmudgeonly defiance,was never hung in parliament. Churchill’s private secretary subsequently made a bonfire and burned the original in accordance with Churchill’s wishes.
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Source: theguardian.com