Happy Are The Painters

Lately I have come across several references to Winston Churchill as an artist, and I find the subject fascinating.  A speech given by his daughter, The Lady Soames, in 1992 entitled "Happy Are The Painters For They Shall Not Be Lonely"  can be read at  The Churchill Centre.  What a lovely piece titled after Churchill's epitaph in Painting as a Pastime, a book that grew from a 1921 essay he wrote for The Strand Magazine.  

"Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day."

According to his daughter, Churchill said that audacity is the only necessity in starting out to paint.  "Just pick up a brush and paint. Have a joyride in a paint-box."

Imagine this fascinating sight:  In 1916 Churchill was with his battalion at the Laurence Farm in the village of Ploegsteert, Flanders, known by English tommies as "Plug Street." A few miles from the front lines, to the amazement of his junior officers, Churchill sat painting in a broken-down chair in the wreckage of an old Flanders farm, shells exploding nearby, "entirely absorbed by the problems of perspective and colour." ["Laurence Farm, Plug Street," 1916].

Living proof that "happy are the painters."