Letters reveal Lady Churchill's fury over sculptor's 'caricature'

A ROW between Lady Churchill and an artist responsible for a sculpture of Sir Winston emerged for the first time today from letters about to be auctioned in London.

They were sent to David McFall, the last sculptor to model Churchill from life. He created a monumental 8ft 6in bronze of the wartime Prime Minister at Woodford, his constituency in east London, in 1958.

Embedded in five tons of granite, the statue, showing the statesman in an aggressive pose, is still there. It was unveiled by Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery in 1959.

In the first of two unpublished letters Lady Churchill looks forward eagerly to seeing the figure at McFall's Chelsea studio, but delight turns to dismay after a tense private view. Although she finds it "a remarkable achievement" Lady Churchill says in the second Letter: "It seems an exaggeration indeed a caricature of Winston."

She goes on: "I think angry and brutal expressions are particularly out of place because during the war when ever there was a bad crisis my husband was always calm and serene." The letters, together with bronze casts of the preliminary model, are being sold for the first time by Alexandra McFall, 57, the sculptor's widow, for about GBP 8,000 in a sale devoted to politics at Sotheby's on 16 July.

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