Sir Winston Spencer Churchill — Riviera Coast Scene

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill O.M., R.A. (1874–1965)
Riviera Coast Scene
Oil on canvas, c.1935
Property from the collection of Mary and Benjamin Rummerfield
My insta is about the art I have a sense of feeling for. I do love a Churchill and I know he's not considered a great artist, but for me it's always been about the colour and the feeling behind it. This feed is built on exactly that, works that connect with me on an instinctive level rather than a critical one, and in that sense Winston and I are not so different. He wasn't a trained painter, he just put down what moved him and did it entirely for himself.
Churchill is often depicted as a bulldog, all resilience and defiance. But his artworks revolve around a very different persona. One that often depicted the vulnerability and turmoil that he may have been going through in the 1930s. He took to painting as an escape, a personal pastime that took him on a journey away from the realities of life in Europe between the wars. His work is often void of people (maybe he just couldn't get them right) and the ones I'm drawn to are often wide open scenes like this one, rendered in his characteristic colour. He painted for himself, he painted what he wanted to and often the artworks convey a typically un-studied look.
He may not have been the most gifted artist in the world, but his paintings do seem to command a rather serious price. Though perhaps that's the point. You're not just buying a painting, you're buying a public persona. There aren't many artists where the biography adds that much to the work.