Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), British painter. Spent three years on the stage; theatrical subjects would be among his best works. At the Slade School he studied under Whistler. Spent much time in France and was greatly influenced by Degas. Leader of the Camden Town Group (the "Camden Impressionists") formed in 1920. Royal Academician 1934 (resigned 1935). Married, thirdly (1926), Therese Lessore.

-- one of hundreds of short bios in the fascinating Speaking For Themselves by Mary Soames

This is Mary Soames' recent account of how Walter Sickert came to the attention of her mother and father, Clementine and Winston Churchill.

On 15 June [1927] Clementine was knocked down by a bus while crossing the Brompton Road ... The accident was reported in the press, and as a result the painter Walter Sickert, who had known Clementine and her family at the turn of the century in Dieppe, marched up to No. 11 [Downing Street] and enquired about his friend of long ago.

Clementine was delighted to see him again and introduced him to Winston: the two men got on very well, and Sickert came both to Chartwell and Downing Street; the long painting sessions they had together strongly influenced Winston's style and technique.

-- p309, Speaking For Themselves

The impact of Sickert's mentoring of Churchill is shown in plate 48 in the book, in a reproduction of Tea-time at Chartwell, painted around 1928 from a photograph taken on 29 August 1927. Shown sitting for tea, are Winston and Clementine Churchill and their son Randolph, Walter Sickert and his wife Therese, Clementine's cousin Diana Mitford, who later became Lady Mosley, wife of the British fascist leader in the 1930s, and Churchill's long-term friend and adviser 'The Prof' Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell.

Sickert has also become infamous for certain things discussed here, starting with two contributors watching the film From Hell. As a promising young painter in the 1880s it seems certain at least that Sickert was asked by someone in the Royal Family (some say directly by his mother Queen Alexandra) to show the slow-witted but artistic Prince Eddy, Duke Of Clarence, around the artistic community in Bloomsbury. What happened next is highly disputed. The old painter allegedly told his (alleged) illegitimate son Joseph Sickert the real facts of the various dreadful sequels to those happy and carefree times. The complex and tangled web that results in the mind (and on a wiki, it seems) as a result of considering the horrible details has made many Sick Of Sickert.

The report linked=WalterSickert shows our interest in both sides to the man's life but also indicates how the Dark Side of the story has predominated on Why. It is also an interesting example of how key pages linking a single theme can be created over a period of at least eighteen months. There is at least something appropriately slow about the Example Uses Of History on Why.