Winston Churchill, British prime minister during the Second World War, was serving in his second term when he celebrated his 80th birthday. Graham Sutherland was contracted to do a portrait to honor the famous statesman, and the painting was unveiled in a public ceremony. Churchill detested the portrait, and it was never hung in the Parliament building as originally intended. After he died, his widow destroyed the painting out of respect for her husband, an act that the artist considered to be vandalism.
It is not difficult to imagine the pride or even vanity of a man whose name appears on…