Silver gelatin print measuring 230 x 180 mm. Gilt frame with velvet border, glazed with perspex. Chartwell, 1953.
Inscribed by Churchill to Grace Hamblin OBE (1908-2002), "the longest-serving member of Churchill’s secretarial staff" (Stelzer), in black ink to the lower portion of the photograph: 'To Grace from Winston S Churchill 1953'.
A very fine and rarely reproduced portrait by Hans Wild of Sir Winston Churchill sat on a bench in the gardens at Chartwell enjoying a cigar.
Grace Hamblin originally served as a junior secretary to Churchill from 1932-1937 during the so-called “Wilderness Years”, briefly leaving the Churchills service in 1937 to care for her aging mother, before returning as Clementine Churchill’s assistant from 1939-1945, accompanying Clementine on her post-war tour of red cross hospitals in the Soviet Union. After the war, Hamblin was appointed secretary and administrator at Chartwell, continuing in her role as Chartwell's first Curator after the house became a National Trust property in 1966. In 1965, Hamblin was one of the very few non-family members invited to attend Churchill's burial service at St Martin's Church, Bladon. “Grace Hamblin died in 2002, aged ninety-four. She had spent seventy of those years working with the Churchills and strengthening and promoting their memory, the longest-serving member of Churchill’s secretarial staff” (Stelzer, Working with Winston, p. 45). Hamblin earned some posthumous notoriety when her apparent role in the suppression of Graham Sutherland's controversial portrait of Churchill was revealed.
Provenance: from the estate of Grace Hamblin OBE (1908-2002), by descent directly to Maggs.
