Winston Churchill

“Sand dunes by the Pyramids near Cairo. painted about 1921.” “At the Pyramids”. View of Jerusalem, painted in 1921.

He described the mountains, of which he was fascinated, and surrounding terrain, to Clementine in 1935, “It is five hours to the ridge of the Atlas and they say you then look down over an immense area, first a great tropical valley, the another range of mountains, and beyond all the Sahara desert.” I’ll take you back to the Côte d’Azur in my next post about Winston Churchill as a painter! Thought to have been painted during Churchill’s last visits in the late 1950s. Churchill was pleased to find there were excellent French newspapers, impressed how modern and civilized was Morocco, calling Marrakech the “Paris of the Sahara.” Writing to Clementine that December 30, 1935, “You would be staggered by what the French have done out here…it is very pleasant to see what a vigorous civilized race can do in creating order and progress in these ancient deserts.” Tangier was his first stop, and from there traveled on to Marrakech. “He was clearly fascinated by Marrakech (the spelling he preferred) and its people and gathered a large number of photographs on this and subsequent visits, which still remain in the Studio archives at Chartwell.” The photos were used for accuracy of the local clothing and city gardens for his paintings. In the 1930s, travel to Morocco became popular for the privileged few, but not yet for the masses. Meryem Mikou states, “He used to go from balcony to balcony to watch for the light, as if to better capture the colors and reproduce them on his canvases.” Expressing his enthusiasm for Marrakech, Churchill said to Roosevelt, “It is the most lovely spot in the whole world…Marrakech is simply the best place on earth to spend an afternoon.” During the 1950 visit, artist Jacques Marjorelle, introduced him to tempera instead of oil, but although he was intrigued by the medium there are no known examples of him ever using it. “Within the city’s walls Churchill was clearly fascinated, for example, by its gardens, the great Mosque, and colorfully garbed people.” He painted from the balcony of the hotel, and at the Ourika gorge. The quote, at the beginning of this article, is from the letter Winston wrote to, “My darling Clemmie”, on December 30, 1935 from the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech. Churchill’s year began by failing to gain a government position in 1935. “This is a wonderful place, and the hotel one of the best I have ever used.