Queen Victoria, for example, maintained a private relationship with the brush. She began weekly drawing lessons at age eight under the portrait painter Richard Westall, later studying briefly with Edward Lear before spending twenty-two years under the Scottish landscape painter William Leighton Leitch. Her subjects were rarely far from home: children and pets mostly, along with the occasional sketch of a favorite opera or ballet. The Royal Collection Trust holds more than four thousand of her drawings and watercolors today, most never intended for an audience beyond her own family.
Queen Victoria knew the art of establishing her image. This mallet celebrates her marriage in 1840.
Sir Winston Churchill, another famous Briton, discovered painting in 1915, following the failure of the Gallipoli campaign and his removal as First Lord of the Admiralty. What began as a form of respite became a lifelong discipline; landscapes, gardens and sunlit views gave Churchill a focus distinct from the pressures of public duty.
Garden at Marrakech stands among the most magnificent works in his oeuvre. Morocco held a special place in Churchill's imagination, and he returned repeatedly to its intense light, radiant color and distant mountain views. The painting presents a world far removed from wartime strategy and parliamentary debate, revealing Churchill as an individual in pursuit of beauty within it. Churchill never sold his paintings—he gifted them to friends on occasion, but most were held in his family's collection and have only trickled onto the market in recent years.
Frank Sinatra found a similar freedom in painting. To the public, he was the voice of an era and the embodiment of American glamour; in private, he painted for more than four decades, pursuing a form of expression independent of his voice or physical presence. His Blue Abstract, Purple Abstract, Abstract with Squares and Abstract with Blue on Red demonstrate a visual language built from strong lines, vivid color and carefully controlled rhythm. Much like Churchill, Sinatra never treated painting as a commercial enterprise. He gave works to friends, colleagues, hospitals and charities, regarding them as personal expressions and acts of generosity.
Queen Victoria
Sir Winston Churchill
Frank Sinatra
Abstract with Blue on Red by Frank Sinatra, Dated 1989. M.S. Rau
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria, for example, maintained a private relationship with the brush. She began weekly drawing lessons at age eight under the portrait painter Richard Westall, later studying briefly with Edward Lear before spending twenty-two years under the Scottish landscape painter William Leighton Leitch. Her subjects were rarely far from home: children and pets mostly, along with the occasional sketch of a favorite opera or ballet. The Royal Collection Trust holds more than four thousand of her drawings and watercolors today, most never intended for an audience beyond her own family.
Queen Victoria knew the art of establishing her image. This mallet celebrates her marriage in 1840.
Sir Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Churchill, another famous Briton, discovered painting in 1915, following the failure of the Gallipoli campaign and his removal as First Lord of the Admiralty. What began as a form of respite became a lifelong discipline; landscapes, gardens and sunlit views gave Churchill a focus distinct from the pressures of public duty.
Garden at Marrakech stands among the most magnificent works in his oeuvre. Morocco held a special place in Churchill's imagination, and he returned repeatedly to its intense light, radiant color and distant mountain views. The painting presents a world far removed from wartime strategy and parliamentary debate, revealing Churchill as an individual in pursuit of beauty within it. Churchill never sold his paintings—he gifted them to friends on occasion, but most were held in his family's collection and have only trickled onto the market in recent years.
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra found a similar freedom in painting. To the public, he was the voice of an era and the embodiment of American glamour; in private, he painted for more than four decades, pursuing a form of expression independent of his voice or physical presence. His Blue Abstract, Purple Abstract, Abstract with Squares and Abstract with Blue on Red demonstrate a visual language built from strong lines, vivid color and carefully controlled rhythm. Much like Churchill, Sinatra never treated painting as a commercial enterprise. He gave works to friends, colleagues, hospitals and charities, regarding them as personal expressions and acts of generosity.
