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Winston Churchill

1 of 224 portraits of Winston Churchill

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Winston Churchill

by Edward Lyddell Sawyer
albumen print, 1901
5 5/8 x 4 in. (143 x 103 mm)
Purchased, 1997
Primary Collection
NPG P705

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Churchill was first elected to parliament as MP for Oldham in October 1900 though it was not until February the following year that he made his maiden speech. He was by then author of five books, and the veteran of a Boer War lecture tour in Britain, America and Canada. The young politician was photographed in the Regent Street studio of Lyddell Sawyer, the photograph is autographed by the sitter.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Cooper, John, Great Britons: The Great Debate, 2002, p. 129 Read entry

    Churchill was a good amateur artist and enjoyed learning from professionals. Both Walter Sickert and Graham Sutherland, when painting him at Chartwell, were pumped for advice. The portraits by Sir William Orpen, particularly, and Sir John Lavery, painted during the First World War, won his approval. But it was photogaphs that defined his popular image, from the truculent prisoner of the Boers to spreads in Picture Post, in planes, boats, trains, beds and wheelchairs, from bumptious officer of hussars to Beaton's and Karsh's icon of defiance.

  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 124

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Current affairs

Queen Victoria dies on 23 January. She is succeeded to the throne by her son, Prince Edward, aged 60, who reigned until his death in 1910. The census results of this year show the huge changes that took place in Britain during her reign, revealing that the population of Britain had doubled in the past 50 years, to 38 million.

Art and science

The start of Pablo Picasso's Blue Period, in which he produces a series of paintings dominated by the colour blue and melancholic mood. Significantly, the period marks the transition in Picasso's style from classicism to abstract art.
Beatrix Potter privately publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit after it is rejected by six publishers.

International

The six colonies of Australia become a federation, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia remains a Commonwealth Realm. This year Australia also passes the Immigration Restriction Act, which limits immigration to Australia and forms the basis of the White Australia policy, a collection of historical legislation and policies designed to restrict non-white immigration to Australia between 1830-1973, although reforms against the policy were introduced in the 1940s.

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