AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week, the auction house Christie's held an art sale in London.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The Winston Churchill, "The Bay Of Eze," is painted circa 1950, coming originally from the family. And interest here - 450,000 now, 450...
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Bidding, starting there at 450,000 pounds, just over $1/2 million for a painting by the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Five hundred.
NICHOLAS ORCHARD: I promise you, it's very exciting when you're in the room.
CHANG: That's the auctioneer Nicholas Orchard. He's also Christie's head of modern British and Irish art. He says a bidding war emerged.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Starting then with the absentee bid at 500.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Five-twenty, 550...
ORCHARD: It became this backwards and forwards between these two telephone bids, you know, pushing them up bit by bit by bit...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Five hundred and eighty...
ORCHARD: ...To get to the final price.
KELLY: Finally, one bidder took home the prize.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Sold. Thank you to paddle number...
CHANG: With fees and all, the painting sold for 945,000 pounds or roughly $1.2 million. The work in question? - "The Bay Of Eze."
ORCHARD: Which is on the southern French coast in the Cote d'Azur. It's a view from up in the hills overlooking the bay with trees and down on the sort of emerald waters, colors that make you just want to dive into the sea.
KELLY: Churchill's love of painting developed later in life, around age 40.
TIMOTHY RILEY: He was a late bloomer when it came to the arts.
CHANG: That's Timothy Riley, director of the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, and an expert on his art.
RILEY: And it came during World War I, after a disastrous battle at the Dardanelles when he was first lord of the admiralty. He lost his job, was forced to resign and suffered from a situational depression. He called it his black dog. And he said that painting came to his rescue. It was art therapy, really, for Winston Churchill.
KELLY: Riley says it was also in line with Churchill's character.
RILEY: In everything that Winston Churchill did, he was highly creative.
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WINSTON CHURCHILL: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil...
RILEY: Just as he contrasted words in his famous speeches, he's contrasting colors.
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CHURCHILL: We shall fight on the beaches...
CHANG: And signaled how he approached leadership.
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CHURCHILL: We shall fight in the fields...
RILEY: He was not timid with a brush. He once said he would attack the canvas.
KELLY: In 2021, Christie's auctioned off another Churchill painting, the only one he made during World War II. It was a gift for former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Churchill composed it in 1943 during the Casablanca Conference in Morocco.
ORCHARD: Which was a key moment in the Second World War, when they were looking for how to attack the Germans or the Axis forces.
CHANG: Again, Nicholas Orchard of Christie's.
ORCHARD: And after the conference, Churchill said to Roosevelt, you must, must, must come for one night to Marrakesh. The light is so beautiful. I want you to see it setting on the Atlas Mountains. And so they went to look at it together. They spent the night. And the next day, Churchill painted that painting and then gave it to President Roosevelt. And the most recent owner of it had been the actress Angelina Jolie. So it had these two really interesting sort of ownerships.
KELLY: The final sale price was more than 8 million pounds, $10 million.
CHANG: And while you may not be able to buy a piece of Churchill's work, Riley says his journey can teach all of us something.
RILEY: He found time, made time when life got difficult. It's a good lesson to slow down every once in a while in this age where things are whirling about and images are bombarding us left and right, to pick up a brush and have a go at it.
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