0:00:04 > 0:00:07He was a giant of politics and war.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14The inspirational leader through Britain's darkest hours.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17We shall fight on the beaches.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19We shall fight on the landing grounds.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21We shall fight in the fields
0:00:21 > 0:00:23and in the streets.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26Soldier, statesman,
0:00:26 > 0:00:27builder of walls,
0:00:27 > 0:00:29smoker of endless cigars,
0:00:29 > 0:00:34but, above all, history's insatiable communicator
0:00:34 > 0:00:38who poured out countless books, articles and speeches.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40But there's another Churchill.
0:00:40 > 0:00:41The private Churchill.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43The Churchill of silences
0:00:43 > 0:00:46and that's not the Churchill of the grand house at Chartwell.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49That's the Churchill of a much humbler little place
0:00:49 > 0:00:51in the grounds just below the house -
0:00:51 > 0:00:56the painting studio, where he painted and fell, at last, silent.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02For almost 50 years, painting was Churchill's private passion.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07He was a man besotted, as I am,
0:01:07 > 0:01:11by challenges of colour, composition and creativity.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16When he was painting, he was completely engrossed
0:01:16 > 0:01:19in what he was doing.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22He found this thing, this pastime,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26that sort of really electrified him.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28There are two obvious questions.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32First, why did Churchill paint quite so much?
0:01:32 > 0:01:37He left us more canvases than many full-time professional artists.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39And, second, was he any good?
0:01:39 > 0:01:42This is the story of that other hidden Churchill
0:01:42 > 0:01:45and the under-examined role that painting
0:01:45 > 0:01:47played in his extraordinary life.
0:01:53 > 0:01:54BELL RINGS
0:02:01 > 0:02:04If you want to understand Winston Churchill,
0:02:04 > 0:02:06Britain's greatest Prime Minister,
0:02:06 > 0:02:11then his family home in Kent is a good place to start.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18Chartwell was his refuge from public life
0:02:18 > 0:02:20and nowhere was more small private
0:02:20 > 0:02:24than his painting studio in the garden.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34This is a building built completely of windows.
0:02:34 > 0:02:36There's the real windows all around us,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39flooding us with light and beautiful views,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43but there are also scores, if not hundreds, of oil paintings.
0:02:43 > 0:02:44Pictures all over them.
0:02:44 > 0:02:49Each one, a window into an aspect of Churchill's personality.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53If you want to inhale the essence of Churchill,
0:02:53 > 0:02:54this is the place to do it,
0:02:54 > 0:02:57not a library or a grand public building.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00This is Churchill confronting himself
0:03:00 > 0:03:02and we are surrounded by the paraphernalia
0:03:02 > 0:03:03of the private Churchill.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05His cigars, his whisky,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08his painting coat, still stained
0:03:08 > 0:03:10with the oil paint and the turpentine
0:03:10 > 0:03:12he was rubbing off from the brushes,
0:03:12 > 0:03:17and, on the easel here, is a painting of the goldfish pond,
0:03:17 > 0:03:18one of his favourite subjects.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20He signed it but it's not really finished
0:03:20 > 0:03:23or, if it's finished, it's remarkably loose.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26David Hockney always said, "Painting's an old man's game,"
0:03:26 > 0:03:28and there's Churchill, the old man,
0:03:28 > 0:03:32painting more loosely than he ever did before.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36The Chartwell studio is more or less as Churchill left it
0:03:36 > 0:03:39at the time of his death
0:03:39 > 0:03:41and these paintings are just a fraction
0:03:41 > 0:03:44of his prodigious output as an artist.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47He only took up painting in middle age
0:03:47 > 0:03:50but he produced more than 500 canvases
0:03:50 > 0:03:52during the last 50 years of his life
0:03:52 > 0:03:55and pictures like these, whatever their quality as art,
0:03:55 > 0:04:00give an unexpected glimpse into the mind and, at times, even the soul
0:04:00 > 0:04:02of this complex and conflicted character.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08There are two kinds of painting,
0:04:08 > 0:04:11looking around me in this room, really.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13There are the exuberant, colourful,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17happiness-filled, dancing paintings of places.
0:04:17 > 0:04:22Lots and lots of colour, lots of water, lots of light dancing around.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25This is a very, very boisterous, fundamentally optimistic man
0:04:25 > 0:04:29who had a thirst for life and a thirst for colour,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31but there are also very dark paintings
0:04:31 > 0:04:33and they tend to be the portraits.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37You get bright landscapes, dark people
0:04:37 > 0:04:39and none of the portraits is quite as dark
0:04:39 > 0:04:42as the one that hangs over the entire room staring down at us
0:04:42 > 0:04:47and it's a small, very, very early painting of Churchill by Churchill.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58Painted in late 1915 when Churchill was 40 years old,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02his self-portrait reveals a man coming to terms
0:05:02 > 0:05:05with harrowing experiences in the First World War.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10This is a thin, haggard, exhausted man
0:05:10 > 0:05:13surrounded by darkness, staring out at us.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15A dark night of the soul,
0:05:15 > 0:05:17and this gives us, I think, a big clue
0:05:17 > 0:05:20as to why Churchill did any of this at all. Why he painted.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22There it is.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26He'd only been painting for a few months when he made this picture.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30It was a creative response to a crisis in his political fortunes.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35A few months earlier, he'd been First Lord of the Admiralty,
0:05:35 > 0:05:37a government minister with a central role
0:05:37 > 0:05:40in Britain's conduct of the First World War.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44In the spring of 1915, he championed the plan
0:05:44 > 0:05:46to break the deadlock of the trenches
0:05:46 > 0:05:50by opening a second front against Turkey to the East.
0:05:50 > 0:05:55The so-called Dardanelles Campaign ended in complete disaster.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59More than 200,000 Allied troops lost their lives
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and Churchill rightly took some of the blame.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04He resigned from the government
0:06:04 > 0:06:08and enlisted to fight on the Western front.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13It was in the brief interlude before visiting the hell of Flanders
0:06:13 > 0:06:16that Churchill, encouraged by his family and friends,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20began painting for the first time since his childhood.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25This was one of his first attempts.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28A peaceful, sunlit image for a man who was close to despair,
0:06:28 > 0:06:30but look at those trees.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34A premonition, perhaps, of shell bursts?
0:06:34 > 0:06:37When he travelled to France in November 1915,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Churchill's paintbox came, too.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Here's a really interesting little picture
0:06:43 > 0:06:44which is not at all what it seems.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46It appears to be a sunny scene.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50There's a light blue sky, clouds scudding across it,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53a rosy little village lit by the sunlight, very pretty,
0:06:53 > 0:06:55and some greenery in the foreground.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Then you look closer.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01Those are not badly painted clouds, those are shell bursts.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04That is not an inadequately painted church spire,
0:07:04 > 0:07:06that is a shattered church spire
0:07:06 > 0:07:11and, all over the village, there are ugly, black holes made by shellfire.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14This was painted by Winston Churchill in 1916,
0:07:14 > 0:07:15right on the front line,
0:07:15 > 0:07:19in a little Belgian village the British army called Plug Street,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22so he was sitting there, presumably in his helmet, at his easel,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24with shellfire bursting around him
0:07:24 > 0:07:26and he wasn't in a sunny mood at all.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29According to his fellow officers, he was in a foul mood,
0:07:29 > 0:07:32so this is a painting by a man starting to paint
0:07:32 > 0:07:34but the strangest thing about this is this -
0:07:34 > 0:07:37that just ten miles away, there's another group of soldiers,
0:07:37 > 0:07:39the Bavarians, and there's another loner,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41also not having a good war,
0:07:41 > 0:07:45also trying to draw and paint to keep himself sane
0:07:45 > 0:07:47but, in his case, less successfully so,
0:07:47 > 0:07:50because his name was Adolf Hitler.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Churchill's family were convinced that this new hobby
0:08:02 > 0:08:05helped him to cope with the pressures of high office
0:08:05 > 0:08:06and frontline fighting
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and that makes sense to me.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12I've drawn and painted in a cheerfully incompetent way
0:08:12 > 0:08:14all of my life
0:08:14 > 0:08:17but the healing effects of drenching yourself
0:08:17 > 0:08:22in the difficult, intricate task of making marks on canvas and paper
0:08:22 > 0:08:25have become especially apparent to me since I had a major stroke
0:08:25 > 0:08:28little more than two years ago.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30Survey Churchill's life
0:08:30 > 0:08:31and, lurking in the shadows
0:08:31 > 0:08:34alongside the man's ardour and courage,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37there's an often haunting anxiety
0:08:37 > 0:08:39or the spectre of depression,
0:08:39 > 0:08:41what he called his Black Dog.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45I can smell it here in his beloved home at Chartwell.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50The house feels a little cold.
0:08:50 > 0:08:52A little quiet.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54It's February, it's quite dark, it's wet outside,
0:08:54 > 0:08:56so maybe not surprisingly,
0:08:56 > 0:09:00but there isn't a great sense of triumph or warmth about this house.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03It's not the house, I don't think, of a man who felt
0:09:03 > 0:09:06that he was triumphal and lionlike,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09however much he may have appeared to be so from the outside.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Humans are the animal which makes.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18The wielding of power is an abstract and very strange kind of making.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22The politician, particularly in wartime, makes decisions.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25He scrawls his name and creates mayhem.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28It's interesting that, at moments of stress throughout his life,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31Churchill escaped to another kind of making,
0:09:31 > 0:09:36one that's so much simpler and, in a way, more innocent.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39Painting for him, was often the way to fling open the shutters
0:09:39 > 0:09:42and let the sunshine back in.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Painting, to my grandfather, was a lifesaver.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48I really believe this.
0:09:48 > 0:09:53I think it got him through some very dark moments
0:09:53 > 0:09:58and the thing about painting and anything else sort of creative
0:09:58 > 0:10:01is that you can't think about anything else while you're doing it.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03I mean, this was something he could...
0:10:03 > 0:10:07Absolutely would take him into another world and he loved it.
0:10:07 > 0:10:10I mean, he so enjoyed it. It wasn't just an escape,
0:10:10 > 0:10:12it was also a huge pleasure.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Churchill's hogs' hair paintbrush
0:10:14 > 0:10:17had helped him through the trials of war
0:10:17 > 0:10:21and it stayed very close to hand throughout the 1920s.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25The energy he threw into relaunching his political career
0:10:25 > 0:10:30was matched by the thrill of his new passion for art.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32He called these pictures daubs
0:10:32 > 0:10:36but that self-deprecation hid a growing fascination
0:10:36 > 0:10:38with the technical challenges of painting.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Churchill characteristically downplayed
0:10:45 > 0:10:47the seriousness of his painting.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52He talks about it as a friend who makes few undue demands,
0:10:52 > 0:10:54but I think we should look, instead, at how he behaved
0:10:54 > 0:10:58and that tells a different story because he cultivated friendships
0:10:58 > 0:11:02with some of the most remarkable and important painters of his age.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06He hung around their studios and learned their techniques
0:11:06 > 0:11:09and had them to tea and talked to them relentlessly
0:11:09 > 0:11:12and, if you are interested in painting, as I am,
0:11:12 > 0:11:15and you have friends who are proper painters, as I do,
0:11:15 > 0:11:17and you talk to them, it is a revelation.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21You are introduced into a golden, intense, passionate world
0:11:21 > 0:11:25which everybody there takes completely seriously
0:11:25 > 0:11:29and I think, all his life, Churchill took painting completely seriously
0:11:29 > 0:11:31and his friendships, above all, show that.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36Churchill's oddly minimalist painting
0:11:36 > 0:11:40Tea in the Dining Room at Chartwell from 1927
0:11:40 > 0:11:43provides a snapshot of his fashionable, aristocratic,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46creative social circle at the time.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50There's the Roaring Twenties beauty Diana Mitford,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Churchill's favourite scientist FA Lindemann,
0:11:53 > 0:11:54his wife Clementine
0:11:54 > 0:12:00and, beside Churchill, the artist Walter Sickert.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03Now, I don't suppose anybody hung around with anybody else
0:12:03 > 0:12:04during the 1920s and '30s
0:12:04 > 0:12:08but Churchill hung around a lot with painters
0:12:08 > 0:12:09and very substantial painters, too.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11Very substantial painters.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15He loved their company and he just felt at ease with them
0:12:15 > 0:12:18because they understood what he would was trying to do,
0:12:18 > 0:12:19which was a serious thing.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Walter Sickert was one of several artists
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Churchill became friendly with during the 1920s.
0:12:28 > 0:12:32Born in Germany, Sickert moved to England as a child.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34He was in his 50s when he first met Churchill
0:12:34 > 0:12:38and a hugely influential figure in British painting.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43As a member of the Camden Town school of painters,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46he was a champion of aggressive social realism.
0:12:48 > 0:12:50So it sounded an unlikely friendship.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The well-connected, aristocratic politician
0:12:53 > 0:12:55and the controversial artist
0:12:55 > 0:13:00fascinated by the grubbier corners of urban life,
0:13:00 > 0:13:01but the two men clicked
0:13:01 > 0:13:04and Sickert taught Churchill several new techniques
0:13:04 > 0:13:06to improve his painting,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10including the use of a slide projector or magic lantern
0:13:10 > 0:13:13to help him set out a composition on the canvas.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19So, all I'm doing here is I'm using the projected image,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22the photograph with the magic lantern, projected onto the canvas
0:13:22 > 0:13:25and I'm using that to trace the outline of the view.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28Giving me a shortcut to the final painting.
0:13:28 > 0:13:29I will then fill it all in.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34It's a technique that the innovative English painter Walter Sickert
0:13:34 > 0:13:35taught Churchill.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37Now, you may regard it simply as cheating
0:13:37 > 0:13:39and I can completely understand why,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42however, this is a form of shortcut
0:13:42 > 0:13:45which, as David Hockney has reminded us recently,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47was used by artists throughout history.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52A simple lens projecting an image onto a canvas to speed things up.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56We know that Vermeer used it. Caravaggio certainly used it.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58So did many other great artists and so did Churchill.
0:13:58 > 0:14:03Why? Above all, because it allowed him to cut to the chase
0:14:03 > 0:14:06and the part of oil painting which he particularly adored,
0:14:06 > 0:14:08which is the great globs of gooey paint,
0:14:08 > 0:14:12the colour, the impasto, the stench, the smacking it on.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16Using this allowed him to get to the fun part more quickly.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28That's as much I can do with that. It's very interesting.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31It's not that good, you know, because you've got your own shadow
0:14:31 > 0:14:34and you can't see the detail very clearly but that's...
0:14:34 > 0:14:35That gives the impression.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38That would then become a painting quite quickly, I think.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40Churchill was eager to learn
0:14:40 > 0:14:44from every leading artist he could get his hands on,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47cramming in the basics of an art school education
0:14:47 > 0:14:50between Cabinet meetings or foreign visits.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56Sir Paul Lavery, Paul Mays, William Orpen
0:14:56 > 0:14:59and, the greatest of them all, Sir William Nicholson
0:14:59 > 0:15:02were the cream of England's art establishment,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05pioneers of a distinctive new style of painting
0:15:05 > 0:15:09and they shared their secrets with this unlikely student.
0:15:12 > 0:15:13In the early 20th century,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16there were a group of specifically English painters
0:15:16 > 0:15:19who emphasised the skills of draughtsmanship
0:15:19 > 0:15:20and the techniques of brush
0:15:20 > 0:15:23over quite sophisticated, subtle effects
0:15:23 > 0:15:25on glass and pewter and flowers
0:15:25 > 0:15:29and their paintings tend to be very quiet in their effect.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33Introspective, completely different from the rather exhibitionist
0:15:33 > 0:15:37and much more colourful and muscular paintings in France at the same time
0:15:37 > 0:15:40and these guys were friends of Churchill
0:15:40 > 0:15:44and it's very interesting that it is the subtle, sophisticated
0:15:44 > 0:15:47quiet, introspective, almost depressive skills
0:15:47 > 0:15:49of the painterly English painters
0:15:49 > 0:15:51that first kick him off as a painter himself.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55He surrounded himself with some of the, really, most superb painters
0:15:55 > 0:15:57that Britain produced at that period.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59I'm thinking of Orpen and people like that.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02He measured himself against the best.
0:16:02 > 0:16:04I think measuring them is not necessarily the right word.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08He felt, in their company, great happiness
0:16:08 > 0:16:11because they respected him as an artist,
0:16:11 > 0:16:15and that was the best thing that happened to him, I believe.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20The most important to Churchill,
0:16:20 > 0:16:23because they became intimate friends,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26I think that's a fair point, is William Nicholson.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29He stayed at Chartwell for a considerable time
0:16:29 > 0:16:30and Churchill so respected him
0:16:30 > 0:16:33and they, of course, painted together.
0:16:33 > 0:16:34They did, and Nicholson,
0:16:34 > 0:16:38one of the loosest but most brilliant, fluid painters
0:16:38 > 0:16:40of that period by far,
0:16:40 > 0:16:42somebody who's coming back into his own at the moment...
0:16:42 > 0:16:44He is, thank God. Yes.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47It's interesting. There are some still lifes by Churchill
0:16:47 > 0:16:50that have that direct influence of Nicholson.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53Their greyness and their silver-ness and so on. Very beautiful.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55It was Nicholson's approach to painting
0:16:55 > 0:16:56that was the most important thing.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58Very serious
0:16:58 > 0:17:00yet light-hearted, I suspect.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06The seriousness with which Churchill studied the craft of painting
0:17:06 > 0:17:09was a constant throughout his life.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14A creative intensity that only close friends and family ever got to see,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16if they were lucky.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18You were with your grandfather when he was painting.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20What was going on?
0:17:20 > 0:17:22When he was painting, he was completely preoccupied
0:17:22 > 0:17:26and he, generally, if he was outside, he'd have his big hat on
0:17:26 > 0:17:30and he would be totally engrossed in what he was doing
0:17:30 > 0:17:34and he didn't really welcome anyone much around
0:17:34 > 0:17:37so, if you were there, you kept your distance.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40The studio was pretty much out of bounds
0:17:40 > 0:17:45in the same way that my grandfather's study was
0:17:45 > 0:17:47and we were not allowed in there
0:17:47 > 0:17:50because those were the places where he worked
0:17:50 > 0:17:53and he hated being disturbed.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56I mean, right through his life,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59there are famous stories of him bellowing at people
0:17:59 > 0:18:03who disturbed him while he was working
0:18:03 > 0:18:08and that included his loved but infuriating grandchildren.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16Oil painting, unlike, say, watercolours,
0:18:16 > 0:18:19oil painting requires complete concentration,
0:18:19 > 0:18:21physical, because it's a physical act.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23Churchill was a very physical man.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25He played golf,
0:18:25 > 0:18:27he hunted, he rode horses
0:18:27 > 0:18:30and this was what oil painting gave him.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32It allowed him to be distracted.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34It was a total, absorbing pursuit.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37Throwing him, his whole self, into it, mind and body.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39Absolutely, you've got it. Exactly.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49He painted whenever and wherever he could.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52At home, in his studio,
0:18:52 > 0:18:56or, best of all, out in the open under a warming sun.
0:18:56 > 0:19:00In 1920, Churchill made the first of many painting trips
0:19:00 > 0:19:02to the south of France
0:19:02 > 0:19:05and discovered a new way of looking at the world.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10For generations, the British upper classes have had to deal
0:19:10 > 0:19:14with the almost unimaginable horror of the British winter,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18and they've dealt with it, by and large, by moving south.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21From Edwardian times right the way through
0:19:21 > 0:19:23to the new Elizabethans of the 1950s,
0:19:23 > 0:19:25in their hundreds and thousands,
0:19:25 > 0:19:28they flocked down here to the south of France
0:19:28 > 0:19:31for its dappled sunlight and it's azure waters
0:19:31 > 0:19:35like so many ungainly, dark migratory birds
0:19:35 > 0:19:37and, in that, at least,
0:19:37 > 0:19:42Winston Churchill was absolutely a man of his time and his class.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49The lush and dramatic landscapes of the Mediterranean
0:19:49 > 0:19:53were a world away from the calmer, gentler scenes at home.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56They demanded a new palette of colours
0:19:56 > 0:20:00and they inspired a new direction in Churchill's approach to his craft.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05His first influences had been the understated English artists,
0:20:05 > 0:20:09but, now, Churchill took inspiration from the European
0:20:09 > 0:20:12impressionists and postimpressionists,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Manet and Monet, Cezanne and Matisse.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18According to Churchill, they had
0:20:18 > 0:20:21"brought to art a new draught of joie de vivre."
0:20:21 > 0:20:28"The beauty of their work is instinct with gaiety and floats in the sparkling air."
0:20:31 > 0:20:34This is one of his early efforts to emulate their success.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37A view of Mimizin in south-west France,
0:20:37 > 0:20:39which reminds me, slightly, of an early Paul Dufy.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48The landscapes were spectacular but the romance of the impoverished artist
0:20:48 > 0:20:51never much appealed to Winston Churchill.
0:20:51 > 0:20:53When he painted abroad,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56he always made sure the digs were up to scratch.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05And this was one of his favourites, the Villa La Pausa,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08once the home of Coco Chanel.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Churchill came from the well-off aristocracy.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14After all, he was born in Blenheim Palace
0:21:14 > 0:21:17but he never had very much ready cash of his own.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19He always dreamed of being a millionaire.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Well, for decades, he could come down to the south of France
0:21:23 > 0:21:25and mingle with those who really were.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28He'd leave behind the problems of freezing London,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30which may feel familiar.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33He was dealing with Ireland, Russia, Iraq,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36and he'd throw it all to one side and he'd come down here
0:21:36 > 0:21:39and he'd loiter about with the likes of Coco Chanel,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42Aristotle Onassis, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44Noel Coward.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47These days we tend to be quite critical of politicians
0:21:47 > 0:21:51who, after they've left office, hang around with the rich and famous.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55Well, for decades, Churchill did exactly that in the South of France.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57Eat your heart out, Tony Blair.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16It's not hard to understand the appeal of the Med
0:22:16 > 0:22:19but, for Churchill, I think it went a little deeper than just
0:22:19 > 0:22:22the glitz and the luxury of places like this.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28Churchill's imagination was, of course, first and foremost verbal.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31The great thinker, the great writer, the great speaker.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33But, for an intensely verbal man,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37he also had a strongly visual imagination.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Why did he keep coming down to the south of France?
0:22:40 > 0:22:42For the sun on his face, yes, of course.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44For the glamorous friends, up to a point.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46But, above all, he came here, I think,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50for the extraordinary, intense, saturated colours,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53which fed his imagination as nothing else could.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56If you want to see how that works, you can turn to
0:22:56 > 0:22:59the only novel the young Churchill wrote.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03It's intensely romantic, quite interesting, not very good
0:23:03 > 0:23:04and it's called Savrola.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12He wrote it in his early twenties long before he began to paint,
0:23:12 > 0:23:14but the novel is full of clues to a romantic sensibility
0:23:14 > 0:23:18which later expressed itself on canvas.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21The hero of the novel,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24a barely disguised version of Churchill himself,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28is a man of action who fights a dictator who is blind to beauty.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32At a key moment in the story,
0:23:32 > 0:23:37he retreats to his study to look at Jupiter in the night sky
0:23:39 > 0:23:44"At last he rose, his mind still far away from Earth."
0:23:44 > 0:23:47"Another world, a world more beautiful,
0:23:47 > 0:23:50"a world of boundless possibilities,
0:23:50 > 0:23:52"enthralled his imagination."
0:23:53 > 0:23:55And then, obviously,
0:23:55 > 0:23:59he and the central female character in the story fall in love.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03"With her, it was as if the rising sunbeam
0:24:03 > 0:24:06"had struck the rainbow from the crystal prism,"
0:24:06 > 0:24:11"or had flushed the snow peak with rose, orange and violet."
0:24:21 > 0:24:28This novel is a young man's fantasy, florid and melodramatic,
0:24:28 > 0:24:30but the romantic sensibility it reveals
0:24:30 > 0:24:33was part of Churchill's make-up to the end.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36I think painting was one way of tapping into it,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39especially when he immersed himself
0:24:39 > 0:24:42in the shimmering light of the Mediterranean.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Churchill adored the south of France,
0:24:49 > 0:24:51it was his personal playground.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54But the Cote D'Azure that Churchill loved
0:24:54 > 0:24:56has now mostly been destroyed.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00Too much appalling development, too much money, too many people.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03There are only a few places, like here on the Loup river,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06which are, more or less exactly, as Churchill knew them.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11Just a few miles north of Cannes,
0:25:11 > 0:25:16the Loup river offered Churchill a challenging juxtaposition
0:25:16 > 0:25:20of harsh, textured cliff faces and still, reflective water.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26Pictures like this spring from the same romantic imagination
0:25:26 > 0:25:29on display in Churchill's early novel,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32but where his prose was overcooked and sentimental,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36the painting is, in my opinion, deft and sophisticated.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43Taken to the Loup river to film, I've decided to draw myself
0:25:43 > 0:25:45but a broader subject.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47To be honest, working here with pencils,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51I find water almost impossible to draw.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55I've chosen a drawing subject which is technically quite difficult.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58Not because of the overall shape, that's straightforward.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02There's a cliff and there are trees coming down into the river bubbling through.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06But because of the complexity and subtlety of the colour here.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10It's still nearly winter. There aren't many leaves on the trees.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14Everything is a kind of gungy brown or a slimy green.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18I'm drawing out the colours, and every time I look at it again, I see more colours.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20It's a complicated business.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23I haven't completely messed it up this time. That's all I'll say.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25It's not great but it's not a total mess-up.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39What's interesting is that this is a difficult place to paint.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44I'm surrounded by running water, dappled colours, speckle, flash.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46He chose hard subjects.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50He once said that painting was like taking a paintbox
0:26:50 > 0:26:53off on a joyride, to lift the blood and tears of the morning.
0:26:53 > 0:26:58Well, if so, all I can say is that Churchill's paintbox was a 4x4,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01which he drove to the hardest places possible. The most obscure.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03The toughest subjects.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17I'm half happy. Which, for me, is quite a lot. Hmm.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24Churchill painted the Loup river several times.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26He came here again and again.
0:27:29 > 0:27:31I think this version is the best.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35He gifted it to the Tate Gallery after a meeting
0:27:35 > 0:27:38with its director John Rothenstein, in his studio at Chartwell.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43Surrounded by Churchill's paintings,
0:27:43 > 0:27:46the two men discussed the importance of art.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52And Churchill turned to Rothenstein and he said,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55"If it weren't for painting, I couldn't live."
0:27:55 > 0:27:58"I couldn't bear the strain of things."
0:27:59 > 0:28:00Horse's mouth.
0:28:12 > 0:28:13Churchill rarely spoke
0:28:13 > 0:28:17so directly about the emotional importance of his art.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20He only wrote publicly about it once,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23in an essay called Painting As A Pastime,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26published shortly after that first expedition to France.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30The essay celebrates the excitement and satisfaction of making art,
0:28:30 > 0:28:32sensations that nourished him
0:28:32 > 0:28:37during a series of incredibly difficult government jobs in the 1920s.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42He painted this calm interior in 1921,
0:28:42 > 0:28:43the same year that he oversaw
0:28:43 > 0:28:46the partition of Ireland as Colonial Secretary.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51A task that earned Churchill many enemies in his own party.
0:28:51 > 0:28:53And this fiery seascape was composed
0:28:53 > 0:28:56when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
0:28:56 > 0:28:58a post he held for five years
0:28:58 > 0:29:02during the upheavals of the general strike and economic depression.
0:29:02 > 0:29:08When the Tories were voted out in 1929, Churchill lost his job.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12With enemies on all sides of the House of Commons,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15he thought his career was over.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19The 1920s had been all about excitement, and colour, and light
0:29:19 > 0:29:23but, now, Churchill's fortunes demanded a more sombre palette.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28He was entering the decade that's been called his "wilderness years."
0:29:30 > 0:29:35This is the period when Churchill's production as a painter starts to really accelerate.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38About half the paintings we have from him now
0:29:38 > 0:29:40come from this time, which is very interesting,
0:29:40 > 0:29:42if you look at what else is going on in his life.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45In his political life he's made bad choices.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49He's a bit of a political dinosaur, virtually an outcast.
0:29:49 > 0:29:51In his other life as a writer, now, I know, none better,
0:29:51 > 0:29:55that life as a hack journalist is very, very exciting
0:29:55 > 0:30:00but extremely unchancy and febrile and things are going very badly for him in that regard.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03Contracts have been cancelled, the money isn't coming in.
0:30:03 > 0:30:04He's under huge pressure.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07And how is he behaving in this house?
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Well, signs of pressure all around.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13The brandies and sodas are starting from 11.30 in the morning -
0:30:13 > 0:30:15a little bit early, even for me.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18And, by the evening, he is knocking himself out with booze -
0:30:18 > 0:30:21brandy and soda, whisky, champagne.
0:30:21 > 0:30:25Day and night have almost ceased to exist for Churchill at this period.
0:30:25 > 0:30:27He will get up in the middle of the night
0:30:27 > 0:30:31and dictate to some poor, wretched secretary for three hours at a time.
0:30:31 > 0:30:33He's wallowing around in his bath.
0:30:33 > 0:30:34He's wandering around this house
0:30:34 > 0:30:36dressed either only in a silk kimono,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39with a great, big red dragon stitched on the back,
0:30:39 > 0:30:41or with no clothes on at all.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44He's showing lots of signs of manic, pressured behaviour.
0:30:49 > 0:30:54"Never a dull or idle moment," Churchill once wrote.
0:30:54 > 0:30:59The 55-year-old outcast now flung his energies into Chartwell.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03Winston rolled up his sleeves and he built cottages, walls,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06garden rockeries, and even a swimming pool
0:31:06 > 0:31:09with his own bare hands.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11Described as "restless and meditative"
0:31:11 > 0:31:14by friend and politician Harold Nicolson,
0:31:14 > 0:31:17Churchill also painted like a demon.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19One of his favourite subjects,
0:31:19 > 0:31:21of who he painted many times over the years -
0:31:21 > 0:31:24the pond in the garden, filled with goldfish.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30I have very strong memories of the goldfish pond.
0:31:30 > 0:31:36Because it was a great sort of little ceremony.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39He used to... After lunch,
0:31:39 > 0:31:45he used to walk down to the goldfish pond, with maybe grandchildren,
0:31:45 > 0:31:47with Rufus the poodle,
0:31:47 > 0:31:51and he'd sit on the edge of the goldfish pond
0:31:51 > 0:31:55and he'd bang on the Yorkstone with his stick,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58and the goldfish would come rushing over.
0:31:58 > 0:32:04And then he'd feed them mealies out of this big box.
0:32:06 > 0:32:08He created that space.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11There was no goldfish pond when he arrived at Chartwell.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15That goldfish pond looked as he wished it to look.
0:32:16 > 0:32:22When the family were gone, Churchill would sit and sit and paint.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29Perhaps it was the technical challenge
0:32:29 > 0:32:33of representing light and shade, water and foliage
0:32:33 > 0:32:35that fascinated him most.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38Or was there more to it than that?
0:32:43 > 0:32:47So this is a very important place to Churchill, this goldfish pond.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51And, at first sight, it seems a bit melancholy - it's dark -
0:32:51 > 0:32:54and you wonder if there's some kind of connection
0:32:54 > 0:32:58between his fascination with this very, very dark green water,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01albeit with flashes of golden goldfish in it,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04and what's going on in his head at the time.
0:33:04 > 0:33:05Because it is the reverse
0:33:05 > 0:33:09of the kind of sunny, sunlit, easy landscapes
0:33:09 > 0:33:11he liked to paint in France, for instance.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15This painting of the pond was done in 1932,
0:33:15 > 0:33:18when Churchill was increasingly frustrated
0:33:18 > 0:33:21by his marginal role in public life.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27Many say it's the best painting that Churchill ever did.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31Well, it's technically accomplished and beautifully composed.
0:33:32 > 0:33:33It's a mood piece,
0:33:33 > 0:33:37which conveys something of the great man's melancholy -
0:33:37 > 0:33:39what his daughter in later life
0:33:39 > 0:33:42would describe as, "A void in his heart,
0:33:42 > 0:33:46"which no achievement or honour could completely fulfil."
0:33:50 > 0:33:52There is a black dog swimming in that water.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57I'm not drawing water very well at the moment, but, um...
0:33:57 > 0:33:59I'm getting there, I guess.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10If black dog was the problem, maybe colour was the cure.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said of Churchill that,
0:34:19 > 0:34:24"He sees history and life as a great Renaissance pageant.
0:34:24 > 0:34:27"The units out of which his world is constructed
0:34:27 > 0:34:32"are simpler and larger-than-life, painted in primary colours."
0:34:37 > 0:34:42That might explain why he loved Marrakesh in Morocco so very much.
0:34:43 > 0:34:48In late 1935, Churchill made the first of many visits
0:34:48 > 0:34:50to paint in the North African city.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56"Sunseeking, rotten and disconsolate,"
0:34:56 > 0:34:59as he once described himself in a letter to his wife,
0:34:59 > 0:35:02Marrakesh promised him desert adventure
0:35:02 > 0:35:05and a trip back in time in primary colours,
0:35:05 > 0:35:09a place to absorb his mind and lift his spirits.
0:35:09 > 0:35:11PENCIL SCRATCHES
0:35:12 > 0:35:18The capacity of art and its making to restore one's mental health
0:35:18 > 0:35:21is something that I am coming to understand,
0:35:21 > 0:35:24and I'm sure Churchill did too.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28I'm really interested in the idea of flow
0:35:28 > 0:35:31as the essence of happiness, if you like.
0:35:31 > 0:35:33And flow is, we're told,
0:35:33 > 0:35:35being engaged with full intensity in something,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38doing it as much as you possibly can, as hard as you can,
0:35:38 > 0:35:41but something you find difficult, and not easy, but you CAN do.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43So, for me, it's drawing.
0:35:43 > 0:35:45When I'm doing it, everything else
0:35:45 > 0:35:49just dissolves into mere colour and line,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51and there is nothing except for colour and line
0:35:51 > 0:35:54in the world, ultimately. So that's what it does for me.
0:35:54 > 0:35:56I'm sure it was the same for Churchill too.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02I wouldn't say that art's kept me sane
0:36:02 > 0:36:04but I think, certainly for me,
0:36:04 > 0:36:06it's been a very, very important release valve.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09When things are going really badly,
0:36:09 > 0:36:11there's been too much pressure in personal life
0:36:11 > 0:36:14or in professional life, when I think I'm about to go pop,
0:36:14 > 0:36:17then, frankly, going back to paints and easels and colours and shapes
0:36:17 > 0:36:19helps me hugely - always has.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24None of us are Churchill.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26We don't quite know what was going on in his mind,
0:36:26 > 0:36:27none of us ever will.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30But my best guess is that it kept him sane
0:36:30 > 0:36:33because it kept him connected to the vibrant,
0:36:33 > 0:36:37kind of flickering, iridescent reality of being alive.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40It's about looking out and thinking, "I am alive."
0:36:40 > 0:36:43You're thinking about the shapes, you're thinking about the colours,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45and you're full of awe and amazement.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48And his paintings are full of awe and amazement and joie de vivre,
0:36:48 > 0:36:50and a sense of being really engaged
0:36:50 > 0:36:52in this extraordinary world around you.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55And, you know, in a pressured, difficult life,
0:36:55 > 0:36:58where you're full of gloom and full of worry and full of angst -
0:36:58 > 0:37:01he had these terrible depressions - I think it that is the kind of thing
0:37:01 > 0:37:04that can stop you blowing your brains out, frankly.
0:37:09 > 0:37:15Painting helped Churchill find a path through his Wilderness Years,
0:37:15 > 0:37:17- which is just as well. - BOMBS WHISTLE AND EXPLODE
0:37:17 > 0:37:22Because, of course, history hadn't quite finished with him just yet.
0:37:22 > 0:37:29CHURCHILL: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36In the past, he'd juggled politics and painting
0:37:36 > 0:37:41but, when he became Prime Minister in May 1940, at the age of 65,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44Churchill's wartime duties were so intense
0:37:44 > 0:37:48that even his private release valve and solace
0:37:48 > 0:37:50had to be packed away for the duration.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56There was just one occasion during six years of war
0:37:56 > 0:37:58when his brushes saw the light of day.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01It was the only time in his life
0:38:01 > 0:38:04when his private passion for making art
0:38:04 > 0:38:07collided with his public role as a politician.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11It's 1943.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14The World War is on a pivot and, for Britain,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17everything depends on the intensity and the strength
0:38:17 > 0:38:19of the American alliance.
0:38:19 > 0:38:20So what does Churchill do?
0:38:20 > 0:38:24He drags President Roosevelt halfway across North Africa,
0:38:24 > 0:38:27here to his beloved Marrakesh.
0:38:27 > 0:38:28Why?
0:38:28 > 0:38:31Because, as he tells the American president, "I have to be with you
0:38:31 > 0:38:36"when you first see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains."
0:38:36 > 0:38:40This is Churchill's diplomacy at its most personal and intense.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42While he's here, he does something
0:38:42 > 0:38:44he doesn't do at any other point during the war -
0:38:44 > 0:38:46he paints a picture of the Koutoubia Mosque -
0:38:46 > 0:38:47a lovely painting -
0:38:47 > 0:38:50and he immediately gives it to Roosevelt.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53This is not the ordinary kind of gift between leaders.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57This is Churchill giving Roosevelt a tiny slice of his own soul -
0:38:57 > 0:39:00ultimate soft power.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03Of course, in those days, the international art markets
0:39:03 > 0:39:05did not exist in quite the way it does today,
0:39:05 > 0:39:07and so where is that lovely painting now?
0:39:07 > 0:39:10In the collection of Mr and Mrs Brad Pitt.
0:39:21 > 0:39:22After the war had been won,
0:39:22 > 0:39:25Churchill returned to Marrakesh many times,
0:39:25 > 0:39:30and always with his paints, which were now out of storage for good.
0:39:30 > 0:39:31His first visit came
0:39:31 > 0:39:36as a new Labour government was settling in back home.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41The wartime Prime Minister had been unceremoniously booted from office
0:39:41 > 0:39:45in a general election that was one of the most celebrated upsets
0:39:45 > 0:39:47in British political history.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52Exhausted and dejected, he decamped here to the Mamounia Hotel,
0:39:52 > 0:39:56with his entourage of family and staff.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00Alongside cases of Pol Roger champagne and whisky,
0:40:00 > 0:40:04frames, canvases and easels would be shipped out from London.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08And his hotel room would become a temporary painting studio,
0:40:08 > 0:40:12again and again, many times over during the next years of his life.
0:40:13 > 0:40:15So what you get from a place like this
0:40:15 > 0:40:17is your high balcony and a huge view,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20stretching for probably 30 or 40 miles into the distance.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23And you've got the Atlas Mountains in the far distance.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25I can exactly see why Churchill enjoyed this balcony
0:40:25 > 0:40:27and this particular view.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29The mountains are kind of...
0:40:29 > 0:40:33There's a kind of sense of Alpine cleanliness and fresh air.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35It's a bracing view, I guess.
0:40:38 > 0:40:42It opened the door to the total involvement of his mind.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44He was a very intelligent man.
0:40:44 > 0:40:47Total involvement of his mind in making a picture,
0:40:47 > 0:40:48which was a very complicated thing.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50And not only that,
0:40:50 > 0:40:52the total involvement, more or less, of his body.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56Cos, when you paint in oils, you need to use the whole of your body
0:40:56 > 0:40:59and, to be a successful painter, you need to use the whole of your mind.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03This is the first time I've painted in oil since my stroke.
0:41:03 > 0:41:05Um...
0:41:05 > 0:41:08Obviously, oils are kind of harder, physically,
0:41:08 > 0:41:11than watercolours or drawing, because you got so much gunk.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13I'll make a massive amount of mess today, I'm sure.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15I'm effectively one-handed -
0:41:15 > 0:41:17I can't hold the canvas and paint at the same time,
0:41:17 > 0:41:19so my marks are going to be quite...
0:41:19 > 0:41:22basic and simple and brutal, if you like.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24And it's a very complicated scene,
0:41:24 > 0:41:25with lots and lots of subtlety about it.
0:41:25 > 0:41:27Am I going to be able to get that subtlety
0:41:27 > 0:41:29or am I just going to make a mess?
0:41:29 > 0:41:30Very good question.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38He loved the South of France and he loved Morocco.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40He said he wanted to go somewhere "paintable and bathable"
0:41:40 > 0:41:42when he went on holiday.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45And, very often, he did find that.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48The line of the mountains is quite simple.
0:41:48 > 0:41:50You've got a lot of trees, a lot of palm trees,
0:41:50 > 0:41:52a lot of movement going on. Battlements.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57The pleasure he got out of it was almost as a craft.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01You know, the technique of putting the paint onto the canvas.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03He loved the texture of the paint,
0:42:03 > 0:42:07the thickness of the paint for different effects.
0:42:07 > 0:42:09It was working with his hands.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13After his monumental efforts in the war,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16Churchill had become surplus to national requirements.
0:42:16 > 0:42:19Morocco was just one of the many places
0:42:19 > 0:42:21he travelled to in the late 1940s,
0:42:21 > 0:42:26as he embarked on a globetrotting life of semi-rejection.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29From Miami Beach and the Mediterranean
0:42:29 > 0:42:30to Belgium and Jamaica,
0:42:30 > 0:42:34he was always on the move and always painting.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38Was he coming to terms with the end of his career,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40or was he recharging his batteries
0:42:40 > 0:42:43before he launched himself into it yet again?
0:42:44 > 0:42:47There comes a time in the life of every painting
0:42:47 > 0:42:50when it kind of finishes itself, when it announces to you
0:42:50 > 0:42:53that, the more you paint, the worse it's now going to get.
0:42:55 > 0:42:57I'm thinking I made some good decisions.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00I've got a very strong vertical, a very strong horizontal.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03It's a very simple design. And, in this case, it's not bad.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05It's not a shameful painting. I wish I'd worked harder
0:43:05 > 0:43:07before I started to put on the big slabs of colour.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09Am I happy with this picture?
0:43:09 > 0:43:10No, I'm not.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Have I ever been happy with any picture I've done?
0:43:13 > 0:43:14Never.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20It seems Churchill was never really satisfied
0:43:20 > 0:43:21with his paintings, either.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24He was certainly very reluctant to show them in public.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32But, in 1947, when Churchill was in his mid-70s,
0:43:32 > 0:43:35the president of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings,
0:43:35 > 0:43:38persuaded him to enter two of his paintings,
0:43:38 > 0:43:42including this view of Winter Sunshine at Chartwell
0:43:42 > 0:43:44for the Academy's Summer Exhibition.
0:43:46 > 0:43:48Churchill submitted the pictures under a pseudonym.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52He wanted them to be accepted and hung on merit,
0:43:52 > 0:43:53not because of who he was.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55The subject, of course, of the picture
0:43:55 > 0:43:57might have been a bit of a giveaway!
0:43:57 > 0:43:59At any rate, the following year,
0:43:59 > 0:44:03Churchill exhibited three pictures at the Academy under his own name.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08The Royal Academy Of Arts is the pinnacle, the bastion,
0:44:08 > 0:44:12the palazzo of the official British art world.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16All up and down the country, in the 1940s and '50s, as now,
0:44:16 > 0:44:20hundreds and thousands of amateur painters and sculptors
0:44:20 > 0:44:25dream of seeing their work hung here in the Summer Exhibition,
0:44:25 > 0:44:27alongside the greats of the day.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29And Churchill was no different.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33In 1948, he was made an honorary RA -
0:44:33 > 0:44:37an almost unique honour for a nonprofessional artist,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40and he took great pride and pleasure in this.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42But it has to be said that,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45characteristically for Churchill, this was a conservative honour.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48The RA has never been at the pinnacle,
0:44:48 > 0:44:50the forefront of world art.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54And Churchill and Sir Alfred Munnings famously discussed here
0:44:54 > 0:44:57how much they hated modern art and, in particular,
0:44:57 > 0:45:02which of them would most like to kick Mr Picasso up the bum!
0:45:03 > 0:45:04PROJECTOR CLICKS
0:45:04 > 0:45:06He was enjoying the honours
0:45:06 > 0:45:09that often come to great men in retirement.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12But Churchill wasn't done with politics yet.
0:45:12 > 0:45:18Astonishingly, in 1951, he became Prime Minister for a second time,
0:45:18 > 0:45:23and he soldiered on through a full term, despite several strokes.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30When he left Number 10 for good in 1955,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33Churchill travelled back to the South of France
0:45:33 > 0:45:35to paint at the Villa La Pausa.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37The former home of Coco Chanel
0:45:37 > 0:45:41was now home of Churchill's literary agent, Emery Reves.
0:45:41 > 0:45:46In the past, painting had been an antidote to mental turmoil.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49Now the challenge was physical instead.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54We know that Churchill sat in this more or less exact spot
0:45:54 > 0:45:56and painted this more or less exact view -
0:45:56 > 0:45:59a great deal better than I'm painting it, I have to say,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01but nonetheless... And you can see the attraction -
0:46:01 > 0:46:04it is just a riot of vivid colours, exploding to you.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07You've got the lovely little Mediterranean town of Menton
0:46:07 > 0:46:09right in front of you,
0:46:09 > 0:46:13a kind of symphony of pinks and creams and bright white.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24La Pausa, for my grandfather, was a haven, in a way.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28He was very lucky that he was able to spend so much time there.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31And he went there for lunch one day,
0:46:31 > 0:46:35and met Wendy and Emery Reves, and obviously expressed such enthusiasm
0:46:35 > 0:46:37that they put a whole room at his disposal.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41In fact, a whole floor at his disposal, and he used it as his own.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46And Wendy Reves would be amazingly helpful,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48and she'd invent things for him to paint.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52It was a very agreeable, wonderful place for him to be.
0:46:54 > 0:46:59I think he was having a marvellous time at an easel.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02You know, fighting the paint into submission,
0:47:02 > 0:47:07puffing away on his cigar, forgetting the cares of the world.
0:47:07 > 0:47:13And having a lovely time with light and landscape,
0:47:13 > 0:47:16and it was something he could do wherever he went.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26I understand, from personal experience,
0:47:26 > 0:47:29the physical challenges of recovering from a stroke.
0:47:29 > 0:47:32But, for Churchill, in his mid-70s,
0:47:32 > 0:47:35to paint again after all he had been through
0:47:35 > 0:47:39speaks volumes for his sheer bloody-mindedness.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44He had many faults, but you would never call him a quitter.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47Churchill never lost his ambition all his life -
0:47:47 > 0:47:49he remained, in his old age,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52as determined to change the world as he ever was.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54He wanted to get rid of the nuclear bomb,
0:47:54 > 0:47:56he wanted to have a new peace treaty with the Soviet Union,
0:47:56 > 0:48:00he was full of ambition, and they stopped him doing it.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03He was too old, too ill, rambled on too long.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05They made him go.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08Now, we know what happens when politicians are forced out -
0:48:08 > 0:48:10it's always bloody, it's always difficult.
0:48:10 > 0:48:11Think of Margaret Thatcher.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13Well, Churchill didn't rage.
0:48:13 > 0:48:15He didn't sort of try to enter politics.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18He didn't make stupid speeches. He carried on.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21One of the ways he carried on was simply sitting here, painting.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23I mean, he... He had one thing that he could do
0:48:23 > 0:48:25that they couldn't take away from him, I suppose.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27And it was this.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43Besides his family, there was no-one better placed
0:48:43 > 0:48:47to understand what art gave to Churchill at this time
0:48:47 > 0:48:49than his bodyguard.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51PROJECTOR CLICKS
0:48:54 > 0:48:58From 1950 until his death, Sergeant Edmund Murray -
0:48:58 > 0:49:01ex-Foreign Legion, ex-Metropolitan Police -
0:49:01 > 0:49:04travelled everywhere with Churchill.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07Murray was a keen amateur painter himself,
0:49:07 > 0:49:11and he soon became Churchill's painting assistant as well.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17Bill, your father was Churchill's close protection officer
0:49:17 > 0:49:18during the 1950s.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20Tell us a little bit about him first.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23My father was a Metropolitan Police officer,
0:49:23 > 0:49:29and he joined Special Branch in 1949. And, er...
0:49:29 > 0:49:32he came up for protection duties, and was shortlisted.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36I think perhaps because he'd spent seven or eight years
0:49:36 > 0:49:38in the French Foreign Legion,
0:49:38 > 0:49:42and he could speak French fluently, and also Arabic as well.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44So Foreign Legion, French, Arabic.
0:49:44 > 0:49:47- But, beyond all of that, he was a painter too.- He was, yes.
0:49:47 > 0:49:48And is it true that he would
0:49:48 > 0:49:51actually scope out places for Churchill to paint,
0:49:51 > 0:49:53then find the places that Churchill then painted?
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Yes, that's right.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59He had a camera that was given to him by Sir Winston,
0:49:59 > 0:50:03and Dad had to go around the sites and find the right places.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06But obviously had to think of security,
0:50:06 > 0:50:08and also think of access as well.
0:50:08 > 0:50:10Because, certainly in the later years,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13Sir Winston wasn't really very mobile.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16And they'd paint together, side-by-side, from time to time?
0:50:16 > 0:50:17Sometimes.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Usually, that would have been at Chartwell or occasionally abroad.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22There was such a lot of equipment to carry around
0:50:22 > 0:50:25that, really, there was only enough equipment for Sir Winston to paint,
0:50:25 > 0:50:27and not my father.
0:50:27 > 0:50:31Right from the early days of my father being the bodyguard,
0:50:31 > 0:50:32Sir Winston gave instructions
0:50:32 > 0:50:36that no-one else was to set out his paints other than my father
0:50:36 > 0:50:39because he knew what Sir Winston wanted, what he needed,
0:50:39 > 0:50:42the colours he needed, the equipment he needed.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44So that's real luxury for any painter,
0:50:44 > 0:50:46to have somebody else lay out the paints,
0:50:46 > 0:50:47clean the brushes, sort you out.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50- Exactly right, yes.- Fantastic. - Yeah, that's true.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52And they clearly shared so much.
0:50:52 > 0:50:55As a result of which, you have Winston Churchill's paints,
0:50:55 > 0:50:58and some of Sir Winston's own brushes.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01It's quite moving, because you can still see the gobs of paint
0:51:01 > 0:51:03and bits of the brush where he has worn them away
0:51:03 > 0:51:06by stabbing and slashing at the canvas.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09And his special painting spectacles, and his great painting hat.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12His painting hat, one of his painting hats.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16Because, certainly in the sunny, sunny climates
0:51:16 > 0:51:19of the South of France and Morocco and Jamaica,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21the hat was really important and essential.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24You wouldn't want to burn your head. It's a very, very fine hat.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27It's a little it's too small for my head! "Bighead Marr"!
0:51:27 > 0:51:29And, above all, we've got this extraordinary painting here,
0:51:29 > 0:51:32which is like an abstract picture.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35It's a mysterious, dark, abstract painting,
0:51:35 > 0:51:38- but it's actually of the goldfish pond at Chartwell.- Yes.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41Probably in his late 80s,
0:51:41 > 0:51:43my father managed to get Sir Winston out
0:51:43 > 0:51:45to do one last painting.
0:51:45 > 0:51:47And we think it was that one.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51It's definitely of the goldfish pond at Chartwell.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55By that time, Sir Winston's eyesight had got quite poor.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00It's very blurred, it's very streaky. It's a strange painting.
0:52:00 > 0:52:02But, at Chartwell, the goldfish ponds are dark.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05You can imagine a very, very old man staring through
0:52:05 > 0:52:09the sort of dark, turbid waters, down into the flashes of gold.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11- It's like a vision of something, isn't it?- Yeah.
0:52:11 > 0:52:12There's something moving.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16It's like an old man looking through reality for some brightness beyond.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20- But this could be the last painting he ever made?- I think it is. Yes.
0:52:20 > 0:52:24Churchill painted almost to the end.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28But it was only after he died in January 1965
0:52:28 > 0:52:33that the full extent of his artistic endeavours became clear.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36More than 500 canvases -
0:52:36 > 0:52:38an extraordinary creative counterpoint
0:52:38 > 0:52:42to one of the 20th Century's most extraordinary lives.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46Now, you had the great good luck, David, of being the first person
0:52:46 > 0:52:49to properly catalogue Churchill's paintings in the 1960s.
0:52:49 > 0:52:51What did that teach you about him?
0:52:51 > 0:52:54Absolutely knocked me out, and still knocks me out,
0:52:54 > 0:52:56if I could use that word,
0:52:56 > 0:52:59was the overall sensitivity of this work.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01Now, I grew up during the War,
0:53:01 > 0:53:03I was well aware of Churchill's, er,
0:53:03 > 0:53:07fame as a warrior, as a leader and so on,
0:53:07 > 0:53:09and I never expected that sensitivity.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12And yet it's through the whole of his art.
0:53:12 > 0:53:15I think it's wonderful and still do.
0:53:15 > 0:53:20'In late 2014 came a moment that Churchill would have loved.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25'Some of his paintings were auctioned at Sotheby's in London.'
0:53:27 > 0:53:31He saw himself as a politician and a writer.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35He didn't see himself as a painter, particularly,
0:53:35 > 0:53:38but he found this thing, this pastime,
0:53:38 > 0:53:42that sort of really electrified him.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45'You see that spirit in his paintings and you hear it
0:53:45 > 0:53:50'in the only public statement he ever made about his art.'
0:53:50 > 0:53:54"To restore psychic equilibrium, we should bring into use
0:53:54 > 0:53:58"those parts of the mind which direct both eye and hand."
0:53:58 > 0:54:02"Painting is complete as a distraction.
0:54:02 > 0:54:07"I know of nothing else which, without exhausting the body,
0:54:07 > 0:54:10"more completely absorbs the mind."
0:54:11 > 0:54:13"One sweep of the palette knife removes the blood
0:54:13 > 0:54:15"and tears of a morning."
0:54:15 > 0:54:16"Innocent."
0:54:16 > 0:54:18"Absorbing."
0:54:18 > 0:54:20"Recuperative."
0:54:20 > 0:54:23'Now, Churchill's paintings, so revealing of his private
0:54:23 > 0:54:27'obsessions, struggles, passions and eccentricities,
0:54:27 > 0:54:29'are being taken more seriously than ever.'
0:54:31 > 0:54:34Having spent most of my life with them,
0:54:34 > 0:54:36I somewhat took them for granted.
0:54:36 > 0:54:40You know, I haven't been sitting at home all our lives thinking,
0:54:40 > 0:54:43"Gosh, you know, they're valuable," or "They're this..."
0:54:43 > 0:54:46They're just my parents' pictures, or grandpapa's pictures,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49or pictures by grandpapa, or, erm...
0:54:49 > 0:54:56And my knowledge of them to start with was the miniscule end of minor.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03'The star lot at Sotheby's, his Goldfish Pond at Chartwell,
0:55:03 > 0:55:05'raised almost £2 million.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09'It's a price that says as much about Churchill's fame as it does
0:55:09 > 0:55:12'about his skill, although he's a much more accomplished painter
0:55:12 > 0:55:14'than I'm ever likely to be.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21'But it has to be said that the quality or cost of Churchill's
0:55:21 > 0:55:24'pictures isn't really the point -
0:55:24 > 0:55:28'their value isn't gauged by money or even critical opinion,
0:55:28 > 0:55:33'but in understanding what the act of creation meant for him,
0:55:33 > 0:55:35'and, by extension, for history.'
0:55:36 > 0:55:39No-one could question what he'd put on the canvas.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41That was how he saw it.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45And that was the way he could show the beautiful things
0:55:45 > 0:55:49that he saw around him and at the same time express himself.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54I think the paintings are expressive of yet another dimension
0:55:54 > 0:55:59to my rather amazing grandfather's extraordinary breadth.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02Here is a man who will try anything.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05Here is a man of great courage.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08You know, give him a blank canvas and he'll have a go.
0:56:09 > 0:56:13Erm, he'll sort of fight it into submission.
0:56:13 > 0:56:14He genuinely loved it.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20In my experience, my grandfather as I knew him
0:56:20 > 0:56:22wasn't this great fierce bulldog.
0:56:22 > 0:56:27He was a very benign person who loved having us all around,
0:56:27 > 0:56:34and so I think that the paintings perhaps come from that side of him.
0:56:34 > 0:56:35And as he said,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39"I would like to spend my first million years in Heaven painting."
0:56:39 > 0:56:43Apart from that showing terrific confidence in what will
0:56:43 > 0:56:45happen to him at the Pearly Gates,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50erm, er, you know, he absolutely loved it,
0:56:50 > 0:56:54and he couldn't spend too much time at the easel.
0:56:54 > 0:56:58Now, we all know, don't we, that Churchill liked to deal with
0:56:58 > 0:57:02some of the gravest, most serious matters by making jokes about them.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04So, for instance...
0:57:04 > 0:57:08"Success consists in going from failure to failure
0:57:08 > 0:57:10"with undiminished enthusiasm."
0:57:10 > 0:57:14Or there's his wartime motto, KBO, "Keep Buggering On."
0:57:14 > 0:57:18But, in truth, there comes to all of us at a certain time in life when
0:57:18 > 0:57:21the accumulated failures and the mistakes
0:57:21 > 0:57:25and the disappointments and the blows, in his case the worst of them
0:57:25 > 0:57:29self-inflicted, are so great, that simply keeping going,
0:57:29 > 0:57:31getting out of bed in the morning, putting on your clothes
0:57:31 > 0:57:35and carrying on becomes a kind of problem.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38For all of us in a small way, for Churchill in a grand way.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42And the more I look around and the more I read, the surer I am that,
0:57:42 > 0:57:47for Churchill, painting was his great secret in all of this.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51It was the thing that allowed him to get away from himself, to relax,
0:57:51 > 0:57:53to keep going, to say to his ego,
0:57:53 > 0:57:55"You push off, I'm busy for a while."
0:57:55 > 0:58:00That primal business of simply recording the world around him.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03And, therefore, he was still available, still standing,
0:58:03 > 0:58:05still courageous, still with zest
0:58:05 > 0:58:09and enthusiasm in 1939-1940 to lead this country.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14And so, if Churchill saved the country, and he did,
0:58:14 > 0:58:18and painting saved Churchill, stopped him from going mad,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22what does that say about the importance of painting?