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Lot Essay
During the 1920s the Churchills were frequent travellers and holidaymakers, staying with family members and friends all over England and Europe. Paintings of scenes in Norfolk, Surrey, Venice, the French Riviera, and the South of France record their visits, as Churchill never travelled without his full painting paraphernalia, and took every opportunity to relax with his paintbrush in hand, always recording the beauty of the landscape around him, often at sunrise or sunset. He was a particularly frequent visitor to the South of France in this decade where he enjoyed the hospitality of his close friend, the Duke of Westminster at his hunting lodge, the Woolsack at Mimizan in Les Landes, near Bordeaux (see lot 20). The magical scenery of this area inspired many landscapes of dense woodland, lakes and garden scenes, but also coastal landscapes, capturing and relishing the tranquillity of the sun-dappled water and russet-toned rocks, which obviously appealed to the artist.
In his article 'Hobbies', published in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine, in December 1925, Churchill explained how the process of painting had opened up his senses to the world around him, 'Not only does the act of painting, divert, rest and stimulate the mind, it also expands and develops the power of observation in the realms of both nature and of art. Until I began to paint, I had no idea how much the landscape had to show. All its colouring became more vivid, more significant, more distinguishable. I found myself instinctively as I walked noting the tint of a leaf, the reflection in a pool, the dreamy purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim pale silhouettes of far horizons. These and a dozen others had been perceived and admired before in a general sense, but now they acquired a new and particular significance. The mind, led on by interest and fancy, begins to register impressions of much greater detail: and each impression carries with it a pleasure and a profit of its own' (quoted in D. Coombs, op. cit., p. 108).
The present work was given by Churchill to R.J. Marnham as a gift; he kept the farm at Chartwell, the artist's home in the Weald of Kent where he lived from 1922 until his death.
We are very grateful to David Coombs for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
In his article 'Hobbies', published in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine, in December 1925, Churchill explained how the process of painting had opened up his senses to the world around him, 'Not only does the act of painting, divert, rest and stimulate the mind, it also expands and develops the power of observation in the realms of both nature and of art. Until I began to paint, I had no idea how much the landscape had to show. All its colouring became more vivid, more significant, more distinguishable. I found myself instinctively as I walked noting the tint of a leaf, the reflection in a pool, the dreamy purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim pale silhouettes of far horizons. These and a dozen others had been perceived and admired before in a general sense, but now they acquired a new and particular significance. The mind, led on by interest and fancy, begins to register impressions of much greater detail: and each impression carries with it a pleasure and a profit of its own' (quoted in D. Coombs, op. cit., p. 108).
The present work was given by Churchill to R.J. Marnham as a gift; he kept the farm at Chartwell, the artist's home in the Weald of Kent where he lived from 1922 until his death.
We are very grateful to David Coombs for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.