Bonhams 1793 : CHURCHILL, Sir WINSTON (1874-1965, statesman, Prime Minister, war leader and author)

This famous war-time image of Churchill was taken on 1 April 1942 at about 3 p.m. Stoneman began as a photographer in the 1890s and was still working in his studio in Baker Street at the time of his death. He was the chief photographer (and ultimately chairman) of J. Russell & Sons, photographers to the National Portrait Gallery's National Photographic Record, founded in 1926. In that capacity he photographed some 7,000 distinguished sitters. He called himself 'the Man's Photographer' on the now controversial grounds that 'Women do not make beautiful photographs. Men have more character in their faces.' This photograph was clearly taken in the same session as the one by Stoneman (showing Churchill standing) illustrated by Malcolm Rogers in Camera Portraits, 1989, number 111. It says something about how Churchill must have thought of this photograph of himself that he was still inscribing and signing copies of it five years after it was taken.