A bronze ‘maquette’ for the statue now in situ in the Members’ Lobby of the Palace of Westminster
signed “Nemon” but un-numbered, indicating that this is the preliminary version and a one-off cast
by the Morris Singer Foundry
59cm high (23¼ inches high)
| Estimate: | £60,000 - £100,000 |
| Hammer price: | £200,000 |
Provenance: Acquired directly from Oscar Nemon by Sir John Langford-Holt (1916-1993) a British Conservative Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury from 1945 to 1983. Sir John Langford-Holt was a prominent member of the committee that commissioned Oscar Nemon’s enduring tribute to Churchill. During Winston Churchill’s later years, he was entrusted by the Tory Whips to look after the grand old man himself.
Acquired directly from John-Langford-Holt by Sir Edward du Cann (1924-2017) a Tory party grandee and the only person to have served as both Chairman of the Conservative Party and as Chairman of the influential 1922 Committee. Following the defeat of Edward Heath’s Conservative Party in the October 1974 general election, du Cann was briefly touted as a successor as Party leader. Although flattered, he decided not to stand, instead throwing his weight behind the little-known former Education Minister, Margaret Thatcher. His natural bonhomie, as much as the influence he wielded through the 1922 Committee, was decisive and Thatcher was elected as leader of the party in February 1975, paving the way to become the first female Prime Minister in British history.
Thence by descent in the family of Sir Edward du Cann
Oscar Nemon had first met Churchill on a trip to Marrakesh, where he had travelled to visit a friend. In an unpublished memoir, Nemon recalls how he first encountered Churchill at the dining room of the hotel in which he was staying. Afraid
of approaching him, Nemon studied the hero of the Second World War from across the room, making mental notes so that he could work on a small bust in his room. When Clementine Churchill, Winston’s wife, was alerted to this, she had the artist send the bust over to their party; she found the result so impressive that she wrote to the artist asking to keep it. It should not, she requested, be altered as she had “seen so many portraits and busts spoilt by attempting to get an exact likeness. Your bust represents to me my husband as I see him and as I think of him, and I would like to have it just as it is”.
This was to be the first of many sittings that Churchill made to Nemon. Beginning informally in Marrakesh, with studies made by Nemon as Churchill painted, these were then picked up again more formally in Britain from 1952, serving as the basis for a number of public commissions. Churchill was not an easy subject. He could be, in Nemon’s words, ‘bellicose, challenging, and deliberately provocative’, which meant that Nemon would often approach sittings with great trepidation. But, as a fellow artist, Nemon and Churchill had a rapport that went beyond the conventional relationship between sitter and artist, with Nemon teaching Churchill how to sculpt, which he practised by making a portrait bust of the artist at his house in Chartwell, Kent, the only known example of a sculpture by Churchill.
After Churchill’s death in 1965 there were calls for a parliamentary memorial to the former Prime Minister to stand alongside Uli Nimptsch’s study of David Lloyd George at the entrance of the House of Commons. Nemon was commissioned to produce a large bronze statue for Parliament. Nemon’s sculpture shows Churchill with his hands on his hips, striding through rubble which evokes the devastation across Britain in the wake of the Second World War.
It is understood that the bronze offered here was the version shown to the Committee established to oversee the commissioning and installation of the statue of Churchill. A scale model was discussed in the House of Commons on Monday 20th June 1966, with the then Minister of Public Building and Works Reg Prentice stating that “A scale model of the statue has been seen by most members of the Memorial Committee and by Lady Spencer Churchill. All were favourably impressed. I have seen and approved the model which will now be used by the sculptor, Mr. Oscar Nemon, as the basis for the development of a full scale model.”
