PALM BEACH, FLA.- The painting Blood, Sweat & Tears depicts one of the most instantly recognizable subjects of the 20th century: Sir Winston Churchill. The Society of the Four Arts recently acquired this large oil on canvas painting, which is adorned with a magnificent, gilded wood frame, from a bequest by Mr. David Harrison Gilmour. Both the painting and its frame have been cleaned and conserved.


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Executed by English artist Frank O. Salisbury (1874 – 1962), it is one of few portraits of the sitter made during Churchill’s Second World War premiership, rather than in his later days as a fêted elder statesman. From 1970 until 1996, when Mr. Gilmour acquired the painting, it hung at 10 Downing Street.

In addition to painting large canvases of historical and ceremonial events and designing stained glass and book illustrations, Salisbury was an accomplished portraitist. He first met Churchill in 1935 and asked the Prime Minister to sit for a portrait in 1942. Due to the pressure of wartime leadership, a formal sitting was impossible. Therefore, the artist created this portrait from graphite studies he made while observing Churchill at work, specifically Churchill speaking before the House of Commons. Salisbury created two portraits after this experience. One portrays the Prime Minister informally, wearing his famous siren suit at his desk, and hangs at Churchill’s home (Chartwell, now owned by the National Trust). In the other work, this portrait, Churchill is depicted as “the great Parliamentarian,” in the conventional morning dress of a statesman and posed as if addressing the assembly with proud humility. Its title, Blood, Sweat & Tears, is taken directly from a speech Churchill gave before Parliament at the time of the Dunkirk evacuations in May of 1940: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat … You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”

Salisbury painted numerous state portraits, including George V in 1917, the Burial of the Unknown Soldier in 1920, and he was the official artist of the Coronation of King George VI in 1937. His affinity for Blood, Sweat & Tears is affirmed by his choice to illustrate the frontispiece of his 1944 autobiography with this work. The Four Arts is honored to accept this prestigious portrait into its permanent art collection, which is now the second work by Salisbury donated by Mr. Gilmour to enter the collection, the first being the black chalk drawing Infantryman (ca. 1915–1920). This compliments Mr. Gilmour’s previous donation to the King Library of 10 volumes of Salisbury’s correspondence with his many sitters, which is housed in the library’s Rare Book Room.

Blood, Sweat, & Tears will be on display in the lobby of the Esther B. O’Keeffe Building which is open to visitors through Sunday, April 27, 2025, and re-opens in the Fall. The building is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays through Saturdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. There is no charge to view the painting. Limited parking may be available at no charge in Four Arts lots and street parking is also available.

To commemorate this donation, and in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Churchill’s birth year (November 30, 1874), The Four Arts has organized for Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill to speak March 6, 2025 at 3 p.m. about Blenheim Palace, home to the Churchill family for over 300 years.


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