It’s not just any painting but a personal gift from Winston Churchill, a significant figure in British and Australian political history. A recent article in The Telegraph mentioned that a Winston Churchill painting hangs in the Canberra office of the Australian Prime Minister. This was a surprise to me as I hadn’t previously heard any mention of the painting. So, I was curious to find out more detail on how the painting—if there really was such a painting—came to be displayed in the PMs office.
I checked with a few Churchill experts, and a Churchillian from Texas kindly informed me that there is a quite lengthy description of the painting and its provenance in John Ramsden’s book, Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and His Legend Since 1945, where he recounts how Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies came to acquire the Churchill painting.
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