Paul Rafferty Archives - Richard M. Langworth

A “Paintatous” Masterpiece: Paul Rafferty on Churchill’s Riviera Art

15 March 2021 Comments 0 Comments

Paul Rafferty, Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera. London: Unicorn Publishing, 2020, 208 pages. $50. Excerpted from a review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. To view the original, with more illustrations, please click here.

A work of art on Churchill’s art

This beautiful book combines Churchill’s favorite French painting venues with fastidious research on their locations. The horizontal format blends quality binding with brilliant color on thick, coated paper, and the price is a bargain. Paul Rafferty, himself an artist, brings Churchill’s oils alive as adjuncts to WSC’s personality. (N.B.: this writer played a minor part in verifying quotations.)…

Paintatious – Paintaceous – Paintacious: What Was Churchill’s Word?

25 February 2021 Comments 1 Comment

Paul Rafferty’s magnificent Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera is being translated for a French edition by Dr. Antoine Capet. The author and translator posed an interesting question. How did Winston Churchill spell “paintatious”?

(Any reader bored by pedantic, picayune, obscure meanderings about nothing of importance should stop reading now. For my review of Paul’s book see: “Book of the Year.”)

“Paintatious” was artist Churchill’s word for a scene worthy of his brush. He found many such venues on the French Riviera, which Paul explores so well. But this is a tricky question because “paintatioius” not a real word.…