Churchill oil sells for £612,800 $1.2 million
LONDON A previously unknown painting by Sir Winston Churchill sold yesterday at Sotheby’s for a record £612,800, nearly three times its estimate.
View of Tinherir, an oil on canvas, was painted in one of Churchill’s favourite retreats, Marrakesh, in 1951. He gave it as a token of friendship to the American general George C. Marshall, the author of the Marshall Plan. Churchill called the general “the last great American” and “the true architect of victory”.
By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - A painting by wartime leader Winston Churchill sold for 612,800 pounds at auction on Monday, easily beating the previous record for the part-time artist and three times the pre-sale estimate.
"View of Tinherir" was painted in 1951 in Marrakech, Morocco, and given two years later to U.S. General George Marshall, whom Churchill considered "the last great American".
"Most significant is the provenance of this painting," said Sarah Thomas, an expert at Sotheby's which sold the work. "It was a gift by Churchill to a statesman whom he respected and revered enormously.
"Obviously also there is the 'lost painting' factor -- it was not known about before we were made aware of it."
According to Sotheby's, it has remained in the Marshall family since 1953 and was sold by award-winning actress Kitty Winn, grand-daughter of the general. It had been expected to fetch 150-250,000 pounds.
The previous auction record for a Churchill painting was 344,000 pounds for "On the Rance, Near St. Malo" set in 2005.
The successful telephone bidder asked to remain anonymous, and Sotheby's would only say that the painting went to a private collector who had expressed an interest in the work before Monday's sale.
"View of Tinherir" was painted in the year that Churchill returned to the office of prime minister and six years after the Allied victory in World War Two.
Churchill had a long association with Morroco, but remembered it foremost as the site for the Casablanca Conference in early 1943 where U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's delegation included Marshall.
The painting he presented to Marshall was one of at least three Moroccan landscapes he gave away as gifts to leading U.S. figures. The other two went to Dwight Eisenhower and Roosevelt himself, according to Sotheby's.
Marshall, who initiated the Marshall Plan to help war-ravaged countries of Europe recover, came to Britain in 1953 to attend Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and Churchill gave him the painting during that visit.
Overall the Sotheby's sale of 20th Century British art fetched more than 7.5 million pounds including the auctioneer's premium, a new record for the company.
Art hostage comments:
Here are a few classic Churchill quotes to use on your friends or enemies over the holidays:
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
A joke is a very serious thing.
Winston Churchill
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Winston Churchill
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
Winston Churchill
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
Winston Churchill
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Winston Churchill
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
Winston Churchill
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
Winston Churchill
Although present on the occasion, I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it.
Winston Churchill
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Winston Churchill
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Winston Churchill
Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.
Winston Churchill
Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.
Winston Churchill
Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.
Winston Churchill
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
Winston Churchill
By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
Winston Churchill
Clement Attlee is a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about.
Winston Churchill
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
Winston Churchill
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
Winston Churchill
Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
Winston Churchill
Death came very easily to her. She had lived such an innocent and loving life of service to others and held such a simple faith, that she had no fears at all and did not seem to mind very much.
Winston Churchill
Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
Winston Churchill
Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.
Winston Churchill
Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.
Winston Churchill
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
Winston Churchill
Eating words has never given me indigestion.
Winston Churchill
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Winston Churchill
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
Winston Churchill
For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
Winston Churchill
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
Winston Churchill
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Winston Churchill
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Winston Churchill
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
Winston Churchill
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
Winston Churchill
He is a modest little man who has a good deal to be modest about.
Winston Churchill
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Winston Churchill
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Winston Churchill
I also hope that I sometimes suggested to the lion the right place to use his claws.
Winston Churchill
I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.
Winston Churchill
I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.
Winston Churchill
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
Winston Churchill
I am bored with it all.
Winston Churchill
I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.
Winston Churchill
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
Winston Churchill
I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Winston Churchill
I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.
Winston Churchill
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Winston Churchill
I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
Winston Churchill
I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence-which is a noble thing.
Winston Churchill
I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.
Winston Churchill
I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.
Winston Churchill
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
Winston Churchill
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
Winston Churchill
I like a man who grins when he fights.
Winston Churchill
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
Winston Churchill
I never worry about action, but only inaction.
Winston Churchill
I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.
Winston Churchill
I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.
Winston Churchill
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill
If I was your wife Sir, I'd poison you! Madam, if you were my wife, I'd let you!
Winston Churchill
If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.
Winston Churchill
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
Winston Churchill
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Winston Churchill
If you are going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
Winston Churchill
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.
Winston Churchill
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
Winston Churchill
If you're going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill
In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.
Winston Churchill
In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.
Winston Churchill
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
Winston Churchill
In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
Winston Churchill
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
Winston Churchill
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Winston Churchill
It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.
Winston Churchill
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Winston Churchill
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
Winston Churchill
It is a remarkable comment on our affairs that the former prime minister of a great sovereign state should thus be received as an honorary citizen of another.
Winston Churchill
It is all right to rat, but you can't re-rat.
Winston Churchill
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
Winston Churchill
It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
Winston Churchill
It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
Winston Churchill
It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.
Winston Churchill
It's no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
Winston Churchill
Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.
Winston Churchill
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
Winston Churchill
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
Winston Churchill
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
Winston Churchill
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill
Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.
Winston Churchill
Most people stumble over the truth, now and then, but they usually manage to pick themselves up and go on, anyway.
Winston Churchill
Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.
Winston Churchill
My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto.
Winston Churchill
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
Winston Churchill
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
Winston Churchill
My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.
Winston Churchill
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
Winston Churchill
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Winston Churchill
Never, never, never give up.
Winston Churchill
"No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.
Winston Churchill
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
Winston Churchill
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
Winston Churchill
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
Winston Churchill
No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.
Winston Churchill
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
Winston Churchill
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Winston Churchill
Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
Winston Churchill
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Winston Churchill
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
Winston Churchill
One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
Winston Churchill
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
Winston Churchill
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
Winston Churchill
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.
Winston Churchill
Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.
Winston Churchill
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Winston Churchill
Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.
Winston Churchill
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
Winston Churchill
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
Winston Churchill
Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Winston Churchill
Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
Winston Churchill
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Winston Churchill
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
Winston Churchill
Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
Winston Churchill
Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
Winston Churchill
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam.
Winston Churchill
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
Winston Churchill
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves.
Winston Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.
Winston Churchill
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Winston Churchill
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
Winston Churchill
The first quality that is needed is audacity.
Winston Churchill
The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.
Winston Churchill
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill
The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.
Winston Churchill
The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.
Winston Churchill
The maxim of the British people is "Business as usual."
Winston Churchill
The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.
Winston Churchill
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.
Winston Churchill
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
Winston Churchill
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Winston Churchill
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Winston Churchill
The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
Winston Churchill
The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.
Winston Churchill
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
Winston Churchill
There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.
Winston Churchill
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
Winston Churchill
There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.
Winston Churchill
There is no such thing as a good tax.
Winston Churchill
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
Winston Churchill
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
Winston Churchill
There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table.
Winston Churchill
These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
Winston Churchill
They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.
Winston Churchill
They told me that Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.
Winston Churchill
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
Winston Churchill
This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
Winston Churchill
Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
Winston Churchill
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
Winston Churchill
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
Winston Churchill
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
Winston Churchill
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Winston Churchill
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Winston Churchill
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
Winston Churchill
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
Winston Churchill
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
Winston Churchill
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
Winston Churchill
We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.
Winston Churchill
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
Winston Churchill
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill
We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.
Winston Churchill
We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
Winston Churchill
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
Winston Churchill
We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
Winston Churchill
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
Winston Churchill
When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.
Winston Churchill
When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.
Winston Churchill
When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
Winston Churchill
When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
Winston Churchill
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
Winston Churchill
When you took your seat I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself.
Winston Churchill
Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.
Winston Churchill
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
Winston Churchill
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
Winston Churchill
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
Winston Churchill
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill
Happy Churchill Quoting !!
No comments:
Post a Comment