Winston Churchill
- Artist: Sir William Orpen
- Date: 1916
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 58 1/4 in. x 40 3/8 in. (1480 mm x 1025 mm) overall
- Portrays: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
In this oil on canvas portrait by Sir William Orpen you see Winston Churchill at a low point in his career. The artist places him with one hand on his hip and the other clutching a top hat, a posture that suggests confident poise yet weighed down shoulders hint at invisible burden. His face is set in despondent thought; eyes look slightly downcast, as if absorbing the weight of 46,000 allied deaths from the Dardanelles campaign. The painting was finished during Orpen’s 1916 sittings for the commission that cleared Churchill’s name in 1917. When the statesman saw it he remarked: “It is not a picture of a man; it is the picture of a man’s soul.”
See it in person
Winston Churchill is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
