A wartime photograph of the three Allied leaders at the Tehran Conference, signed by Winston S. Churchill in blue ink to the upper right. The image records the first meeting of the Big Three, Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, seated together on the portico of the Soviet Embassy in Tehran in late November 1943. Stalin sits at the left in the cap and service uniform of a Marshal of the Soviet Union, Roosevelt at the center, and Churchill at the right in Royal Air Force uniform with his hat resting on his lap. The signature falls in the background between Roosevelt and Churchill, clear of all three sitters.
The Tehran Conference, held between November 28 and December 1, 1943, under the codename Eureka, brought the three leaders together for the first time. Over four days, they agreed on the strategy that shaped the remainder of the war in Europe, committing to a second front in the west through Operation Overlord, the cross-Channel invasion launched the following June, alongside a coordinated Soviet offensive in the east. The portico photographs taken during the conference are among the defining images of the wartime alliance.
The photograph was offered at Swann Galleries, New York, on October 24, 1985, lot 71, where it was purchased by Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000, and a well-known collector of Churchill material. It remained in his collection until recent years.
Gelatin silver print, warm in tone, measuring 205 by 260 mm, approximately 8 by 10 1/4 inches, mounted on card. The print is clear and well contrasted, the signature bold and unfaded. Presented in a black molding with a wide cream mount.
A wartime photograph of the three Allied leaders at the Tehran Conference, signed by Winston S. Churchill in blue ink to the upper right. The image records the first meeting of the Big Three, Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, seated together on the portico of the Soviet Embassy in Tehran in late November 1943. Stalin sits at the left in the cap and service uniform of a Marshal of the Soviet Union, Roosevelt at the center, and Churchill at the right in Royal Air Force uniform with his hat resting on his lap. The signature falls in the background between Roosevelt and Churchill, clear of all three sitters.
The Tehran Conference, held between November 28 and December 1, 1943, under the codename Eureka, brought the three leaders together for the first time. Over four days, they agreed on the strategy that shaped the remainder of the war in Europe, committing to a second front in the west through Operation Overlord, the cross-Channel invasion launched the following June, alongside a coordinated Soviet offensive in the east. The portico photographs taken during the conference are among the defining images of the wartime alliance.
The photograph was offered at Swann Galleries, New York, on October 24, 1985, lot 71, where it was purchased by Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine and a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000, and a well-known collector of Churchill material. It remained in his collection until recent years.
Gelatin silver print, warm in tone, measuring 205 by 260 mm, approximately 8 by 10 1/4 inches, mounted on card. The print is clear and well contrasted, the signature bold and unfaded. Presented in a black molding with a wide cream mount.
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