Winston is a bronze sculpture by artist Cécile Raynal.

The artwork is of Winston Churchill, it was commissioned by the Mayor of Cap d’Ail, a French Riviera town and created by the French sculptress, Cécile Raynal. During the post-war years, the ‘old lion’ spent many long stays at the Villa La Capponcina in Cap d'Ail the former property of his friend, Lord Beaverbrook. There, inspired by the landscapes and the tranquillity of the place, he devoted himself with a passion to painting. In 1952, the town of Cap-d'Ail granted him the title of honorary city mayor; Cécile Raynal’s sculpture celebrates the 70th anniversary of this event. The bronze sculpture ‘Winston’ was unveiled on the 1st October 2022 with Prince Albert II of Monaco in attendance. It is installed in the garden of Villa Capponcina, overlooking the coastal path.

As often during her creative process, Cécile Raynal starts off immersing herself into the character's life and world: she read Churchill's biographies, his speeches, the letters between him and his wife, a part of his war diary. She also looked at images of him as a child and young man, archival war footage and of course, his paintings. The work is divided into several phases: initial sketches, then reduced scale clay sculptures, finally the large-scale clay sculpture. Once fired, it is delivered to the foundry who casts the final bronze sculpture through the wax mould process.

The artist’s aim was to pass on the multiple identities and personality traits of the politician into the portrait sculpture: his humour, his intelligence, but also his harshness and a certain torment. To that end, Cécile Raynal tried to imagine a fictional meeting with Churchill, where she engaged with his different lives and voices. The sculpture that emerges from the meeting shows the artist's embedded ambivalence towards the historical figure: curator and aristocrat on the one hand, but also saviour of Europe thanks to his strength and courage. Cécile Raynal's Churchill clothes are that of an aristocrat and politician, with a painter's jacket over them and paintbrushes in his pocket.

“As for every portrait, every meeting, the quality of the sculpture in-hand is due to the permeability of my hands, their ability to perceive the one who, as in this case has gone, set in images and omnipresent. To let oneself be almost absorbed into the different Winstons, with many lives whose history have changed History.”

The sculpture is a limited edition of 8 and 4 artist proofs, signed and numbered. You can find more on the creation of this piece on this article.