SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL: PAINTING AS A PASTIME
Churchill’s paintings tell the story of his travels through Europe, America and North Africa and form a pictorial diary of his ‘off-duty life’ as a father, husband and friend. Sir Winston Churchill, Marrakech, oil on canvas laid on board, circa 1935 (est. £80,000-120,000) ‘Marrakesh is simply the nicest place on Earth to spend an afternoon’ Marrakech was one of Churchill’s favourite winter painting locations. Fascinated by the exotic, desert landscape and the variety of subjects that presented themselves, as well as the climate, colour and light, Churchill’s Moroccan paintings can be counted amongst the most successful works that he ever produced. Such was the draw of the city he called the ‘Paris of the Sahara’ that Churchill was prompted to attempt his one and only war-time painting here in the immediate aftermath of the Casablanca Conference of 1943, pleading with his friend and fellow statesman Roosevelt to accompany him to Marrakesh and watch the sun go down over the Atlas Mountains.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ARABELLA CHURCHILL
Sir Winston Churchill, An Open Staircase, La Capponcina, Cap d’Ail, oil on canvas, circa 1940s (est. £80,000-120,000) Established in 1981, the charity uses drama participation and creative play to provide social and emotional benefits for children of all abilities, but focusing particularly on those with special needs. Churchill and his wife Clementine had a lifelong fascination with France, and this painting of his political friend Lord Beaverbrook’s villa – bustling with architectural angles and evocative Mediterranean colours – depicts why this small corner of a paradise meant so much to Churchill. As with so many of his works, a sense of quiet and privacy pervades this scene, drawing the viewer into the narrow archway. The sale will also feature two paintings that Churchill had gifted to his adored granddaughter Arabella, which until now have remained in the studio at Churchill’s beloved Chartwell and will be sold to benefit Children’s World. glamorous early life, Arabella chose a different path and set out to always help those around her. A keen supporter of various charities, Arabella was most well- known for her pivotal role in co-founding Glastonbury as well as the enduring legacy of the charity she set up, Children’s World. After a

TWO MONUMENTAL CANVASES BY WILLIAM SCOTT
‘Beauty in plainness... in a conception that is precise’ William Scott was among the most internationally celebrated British painters of the 20th century, his works acquired by the most forward-thinking collectors and institutions of their day. This auction presents two works from the collections of two uncompromisingly modern Irish collectors – Dr Ronald Tallon and Dr John O’Driscoll – both having remained in family collections since they were first acquired. William Scott, Berlin Blues 2, oil on canvas, 1965 (est. £350,000-450,000) Scott moved to Berlin in 1963 on the invitation of the Ford Foundation to take part in the Berliner Künstlerprogramm artist-in-residence programme. The stimulus of Berlin was at once both cerebral, as he mingled with Berlin creatives, and tangible – the eponymous colour of the Berlin Blues series was a pigment Scott discovered whilst in the city. The emphasis on emblematic flatness and abstract formal relationships in these works was also partly rooted in an avid interest in Egyptian sculpture, fuelled by the exceptional archaeological collections in the city. Scott himself considered this impactful painting immensely significant, selecting it as the basis for a five-pence stamp design he created for the Eire postal service in 1973. Having first pondered in a letter to his son as to whether or not the first ever abstract stamp would be met with approval, his doubts were proved to be unfounded, as eight million copies permeated the consciousness of the Irish public. William Scott, Dark Earth Scheme, oil on canvas, 1974 (est. £200,000-300,000) The genesis for Scott’s life-long obsession for the theme of the still life was a visit to an exhibition in Paris in the summer of 1946, entitled ‘A Thousand Years of Still Life Painting’. The show left him overwhelmed with the notion that despite a seemingly ‘limited’ subject, the genre had been a powerful one for artists for countless generations. Scott developed a vocabulary of distinctive forms inspired by objects familiar to him. In much the same way as the Cubists used the guitar and bottles as ciphers of the bohemian life, so Scott focused on the long handled frying pan and square bowl, both placed on a flattened table top, as signifiers of simple domesticity and the enduring power of hearth and home. Dark Earth Scheme encapsulates the very best of Scott’s poetic sense of space, with his instantly recognisable simplified forms arranged in perfect harmony on a backdrop of rich, ochre tones.