Telfair Museums recenlty announced that its exhibition of Sir Winston Churchill paintings, The Art of Diplomacy: Winston Churchill and the Pursuit of Painting,” will include one of Churchill’s most important works, a landscape called The Tower of the Katoubia Mosque (1943). The exhibition is on display April 23-July 26 at the Jepson Center for the Arts. 

The landscape is the only piece that Churchill painted during World War II, and according to his Great-Grandson, Duncan Sandys, and the exhibition’s curator, J. English Cook, it might have played an important role in the war, as well. 

“In January of 1943, Churchill secretly met with President Franklin Roosevelt in Casablanca, Morocco to decide the timing of D-Day, the invasion of France,” write Cook and Sandys in the exhibition catalogue. “After days of tough negotiation, Churchill convinced Roosevelt to support a D-Day campaign of overwhelming force in 1944. He invited Roosevelt to cement the agreement –which Churchill knew demanded a close personal friendship –over a trip to Marrakech to watch the sun set against the backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. The next day, Churchill painted the daytime view from the same spot, later giving the painting to Roosevelt.” 

President Roosevelt hung the painting in his Hyde Park, New York home. His son, Elliot Roosevelt, sold it to a collector, and as the years went by, the painting passed through several hands and became known as the “lost Roosevelt.” In 2011 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bought the painting. Never before has the couple loaned the painting for display, until doing so for this exhibition. 

The Art of Diplomacy: Winston Churchill and the Pursuit of Painting is organized by the Millennium Gate Museum, Atlanta, GA and is presented by Telfair Museums, in partnership with the Georgia Historical Society.