simple .” Maxine replied “ Winston , how brave of you .”
Winston was enraptured by the French Riviera , the sun , the colours and abundant subject matter were irresistible to him and he longed to capture them on canvas . The Pol Roger , fine food and Casinos were also to be indulged in .
The painter
Churchill painted a possible 600 paintings in total during his lifetime , at least 150 of them were of the South of France . He only painted one canvas during the Second World War , in Marrakech , which he gifted to President Roosevelt .
Considering his relatively limited time and output as a painter , one has to judge his work with this in mind . To me , he excelled as an amateur painter . The more I looked at the canvases and the locations , the more I came to respect him as an artist . He painted large canvases on site , in the elements . He would finish them off at his studio in Chartwell because of his busy schedule . If it was possible to return to the same location to continue or complete a canvas , he would .
Churchill painted fast , a one and a half hour session could see the canvas covered . He was bold , attacked the canvas and did not shy away from a subject , colour or challenge . He adored colour and squeezed all the colours of the rainbow onto his palette . Some of his works tended to have somewhat garish colouring . His wife Clementine would encourage him to “ cool your palette a la Nicholson ” ( Sir William Nicholson , friend and artist mentor ).