Lucy Davis

A detailed study of Sir Winston Churchill's paintings, presenting a fascinating backdrop to the complex and poignant times he lived in. Universally renowned as an inspirational statesman, writer and orator who led Britain to victory in World War II, Winston Churchill (1874–1965) is less often remembered as an enthusiastic amateur painter. Despite starting late at the age of forty, painting became a passion that would endure for the rest of his life. Published to coincide with the Wallace Collection’s exhibition of the same name, Winston Churchill: The Painter explores Churchill’s activity as an artist from his first attempts during World War I through to the 1960s, shortly before his death. A careful selection of over fifty paintings from museums, institutions and private collections presents a fascinating backdrop to his times, politics, diplomacy and interests. With essays by Allen Packwood, Katherine Carter, Barry Phipps, Paul Rafferty, Andrew Roberts and Alison Smith, the book also includes a small group of works by Churchill’s artistic mentors and friends, such as Sir John Lavery (1856–1941) and Sir William Nicholson (1872–1949), which help explore his artistic development. Churchill’s paintings are ultimately representations of places he loved to visit and depict, but they are just as much autobiographical and provide an insight not often appreciated by the public into his private life. Winston Churchill: The Painter invites readers to reconsider Churchill through the lens of his art.

A handsomely illustrated monograph that examines in depth Rubens’s two greatest landscape paintings: A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning and The Rainbow Landscape. Painted as pendants, the pair of paintings have been in London since 1803. This book presents an updated and almost complete history of the provenance of the two works, describing their passage through eminent collections from the time of Rubens’s death until they reached their respective collections. Separated by less than a mile, the former eventually entered the collection of the National Gallery and the latter the Wallace Collection. The book puts the creation of these two landscapes into the full context of Rubens’s later life and his semi-retirement. It demonstrates how they are the zenith of his achievements as a landscape painter and explores how he drew skilfully on Flemish influences, including Bruegel, in creating two highly original compositions. Written to engage and appeal to the non-specialist reader and academic alike, the book makes an important contribution to scholarship in the field, including original technical research and new photography that show how these complex compositions evolved iteratively as the panels onto which they were painted were expanded.

One of Britain’s most important and influential painters, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) is justly celebrated for his dynamic portraiture, his poignant ‘fancy pictures’, his ambitious history paintings and his role as the first President of Britain’s Royal Academy. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Wallace Collection, London (12 March–7 June 2015), this catalogue provides a fresh perspective on Reynolds, focusing on his innovative, often highly experimental approaches to the practice and materials of painting. It investigates his radical manipulation of pigments, oils, glazes and varnishes, and traces his experiments with color, tone and handling. It reveals his continual temptation to rework and revise his pictures, illuminates his highly creative responses to the new exhibition culture of his day and explores his continual adaptations of the art of the Old Masters. In doing so, it encourages us to look at the work of this famous eighteenth-century British artist in a new and often surprising light. Technical analysis of some of Reynolds's most important paintings will be revelatory, and close-up photography and detailed examination of a range of pictures – at the center of which are the Wallace Collection’s own outstanding collection of works by the artist – will shed light on the fascinating and ongoing process of experimentation that spanned Reynolds’s entire career. The book situates Reynolds’s practice of experimentation – of both technique and of subject – in relation to that conducted at leading societies of science and learning at the time, and specifically to Josiah Wedgwood, one of Enlightenment Britain’s greatest experimentalists in the arts. Finally, it demonstrates how Reynolds’s innovations as a painter were often the product of collaboration – in part, with his assistants and his students, but, more importantly, with his patrons and subjects, with whom he continually explored the possibilities of gesture, expression, performance and role-play.