![]() While Aneurin Bevan, a Labour MP and one of Churchill's critics, called it, "A beautiful work", Lord Hailsham, one of Churchill's Conservative colleagues and a friend, called it "disgusting". ![]() Other reactions were mixed some critics praised the strength of its likeness, but others condemned it as a disgrace. In his acceptance speech, Churchill remarked on the unprecedented honour shown to him and described the painting (in a remark often considered a backhanded compliment) as "a remarkable example of modern art", combining "force and candour". The presentation ceremony at Westminster Hall was recorded by the BBC. MP Charles Doughty persuaded Churchill that the presentation had to go ahead, to avoid offending the donors. Sutherland maintained that he honestly painted what he saw. With only 10 days to go, he sent a note to Sutherland rejecting the portrait and stating that the ceremony would go ahead without it. He described it as "filthy" and "malignant". It was his first view of the work, and he was deeply upset. ReceptionĬhurchill's wife viewed the completed portrait on 20 November 1954 and took a photograph back to her husband. Churchill's son Randolph thought the portrait made him look "disenchanted". Churchill's wife thought it was a good resemblance – "really quite alarmingly like him" – but also said it made him look too cross, while recognising that it was a familiar expression. Sutherland was reluctant to discuss the work in progress with Churchill and showed the subject few of his working materials. Churchill is shown scowling, slightly slumped forward, surrounded by wintery grey, brown and black tones. The pose, with Churchill grasping the arms of his chair, recalls the statue of US President Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He took his preliminary materials back to his studio to create the final work on a large square canvas, the shape chosen to figuratively represent Churchill's solidity, reflecting a remark that Churchill made, "I am a rock". Sutherland also worked from photographs by Elsbeth Juda. That riveting scene-which starts with a simple goldfish pond and ends in manly, restrained tears-is exactly the kind of thing that makes The Crown such refreshingly restrained-yet-irresistible television.Sutherland made charcoal sketches of Churchill at a handful of sittings at Chartwell from August 1954, concentrating on Churchill's hands and face, and then made some oil studies. This series prefers, instead, the slow burn of that two-hander sequence between Lithgow’s enfeebled Churchill and Dillane’s probing Sutherland. The episode ends with Clementine’s official story-that she burned it all on her own.īut even if Morgan did know all the facts, The Crown isn’t really one for capers anyway. In 1978, when Sutherland discovered the painting had been burned, he called it “without question an act of vandalism.”Īnother writer might have latched on to the drama of a middle-of-the-night painting bonfire, but it’s possible Morgan-who has been working on The Crown since at least 2014-didn’t know about the Hamblin caper when he wrote his script. ![]() When Hamblin came back to tell her boss what she had done, Churchill’s formidable wife said, “You did exactly as I would have wanted.” Clementine-who worked very hard to preserve her husband’s legacy both during his career and after his death-took the blame for the portrait going missing and claimed she burned it herself.
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