A powerful bronze portrait of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir William Reid Dick, one of the foremost British sculptors of the twentieth century, taken from the life study he modeled in 1942, and signed and dated on the reverse of the neck. Height 11 inches, dark green patina, on an integral square bronze plinth.
The portrait was commissioned by the Royal Academy from Reid Dick in 1942, at the height of the Second World War. Churchill, consumed by the direction of the war, was reluctant to spare the hours a sitting required, and by tradition agreed to sit only after the personal intervention of King George VI. The result is a likeness drawn from life at the very moment of Churchill's wartime leadership, the heavy features and set mouth recorded with the directness that was Reid Dick's hallmark as a portraitist.
Reid Dick models the Prime Minister without flattery or rhetorical softening. The head is bare and frontal, the brow heavy, the jaw and jowls fully described, the expression fixed in an attitude of resolve. There is no ornament, no gesture toward the swagger of official portraiture, only the weight of the man and the office he carried. The surface is worked freely, catching light across the modeled planes, and finished in a dark green patina.
Reid Dick stood at the center of British public sculpture between the wars and after. A Royal Academician from 1928, President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, knighted in 1935, and appointed King's Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland in 1938, he was entrusted with many of the nation's most prominent commissions, among them the recumbent effigies of George V and Queen Mary at Windsor, the lion of the Menin Gate at Ypres, the eagle of the Royal Air Force Memorial on the Victoria Embankment, and the equestrian Lady Godiva at Coventry. His best-known work in the United States stands in London's Grosvenor Square, the memorial statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, unveiled in 1948 by Eleanor Roosevelt in the presence of King George VI. His portrait of Churchill belongs to this company, a life study of the wartime leader by the sculptor of choice to the crown.
Provenance: Private collection.
Condition: Very good overall. The bronze presents a dark green patina with natural verdigris to the recesses. The signature and date, W Reid Dick 1942, are clear and legible on the reverse of the neck. Minor wear consistent with age and handling. No restoration noted.
A powerful bronze portrait of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir William Reid Dick, one of the foremost British sculptors of the twentieth century, taken from the life study he modeled in 1942, and signed and dated on the reverse of the neck. Height 11 inches, dark green patina, on an integral square bronze plinth.
The portrait was commissioned by the Royal Academy from Reid Dick in 1942, at the height of the Second World War. Churchill, consumed by the direction of the war, was reluctant to spare the hours a sitting required, and by tradition agreed to sit only after the personal intervention of King George VI. The result is a likeness drawn from life at the very moment of Churchill's wartime leadership, the heavy features and set mouth recorded with the directness that was Reid Dick's hallmark as a portraitist.
Reid Dick models the Prime Minister without flattery or rhetorical softening. The head is bare and frontal, the brow heavy, the jaw and jowls fully described, the expression fixed in an attitude of resolve. There is no ornament, no gesture toward the swagger of official portraiture, only the weight of the man and the office he carried. The surface is worked freely, catching light across the modeled planes, and finished in a dark green patina.
Reid Dick stood at the center of British public sculpture between the wars and after. A Royal Academician from 1928, President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, knighted in 1935, and appointed King's Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland in 1938, he was entrusted with many of the nation's most prominent commissions, among them the recumbent effigies of George V and Queen Mary at Windsor, the lion of the Menin Gate at Ypres, the eagle of the Royal Air Force Memorial on the Victoria Embankment, and the equestrian Lady Godiva at Coventry. His best-known work in the United States stands in London's Grosvenor Square, the memorial statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, unveiled in 1948 by Eleanor Roosevelt in the presence of King George VI. His portrait of Churchill belongs to this company, a life study of the wartime leader by the sculptor of choice to the crown.
Provenance: Private collection.
Condition: Very good overall. The bronze presents a dark green patina with natural verdigris to the recesses. The signature and date, W Reid Dick 1942, are clear and legible on the reverse of the neck. Minor wear consistent with age and handling. No restoration noted.
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