{"id":721088,"date":"2026-06-23T11:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T11:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721088\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T11:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T11:51:11","slug":"artwork-removed-from-national-portrait-gallery-after-row-over-churchills-role-in-bengal-famine-national-portrait-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/721088\/","title":{"rendered":"Artwork removed from National Portrait Gallery after row over Churchill\u2019s role in Bengal famine | National Portrait Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

An artwork by a Turner prize-winning artist has been removed from the National Portrait Gallery<\/a> (NPG) after a row about the role Winston Churchill played in the 1943 Bengal famine.<\/p>\n

The Persistence video installation by Helen Cammock was taken down on Monday after a week of criticism as pressure mounted on the gallery.<\/p>\n

The NPG faced calls for its removal from a group of 50 peers, including Churchill\u2019s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames, who objected to a line in the piece about his grandfather\u2019s role in the event.<\/p>\n

In the work, Cammock, who narrates the 40-minute piece, discusses Oliver Cromwell\u2019s campaigns in Ireland<\/a>, saying \u201che starved people, en masse, a little like the wilful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill\u201d.<\/p>\n

The line was at the centre of a row that escalated when a letter \u2013 signed by 50 peers \u2013 was sent to the gallery\u2019s board by the historian and peer Andrew Roberts, who claimed the installation\u2019s description of Churchill was an \u201cideologically motivated rant\u201d.<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill\u2019s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames was among the signatories to the letter. Photograph: Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n

Cammock\u2019s work was also criticised by the Telegraph<\/a>, which called her assertion that Churchill caused the famine \u201cincorrect\u201d. The artist and gallery had initially defended the work<\/a> but on Monday evening the NPG confirmed it had been removed at Cammock\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect her decision,\u201d the gallery said in a statement. \u201cJust as we acknowledge the opinions of those who were offended by what was said in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cammock said in a statement: \u201cThere is an incredible pressure on artists and arts institutions to bend to external pressure; to be benign at best and silent at worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not accept this pressure. To question, challenge and explore ideas and histories is vital to a healthy society and art is intrinsic to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Churchill\u2019s role in the tragedy, in which an estimated 3 million people<\/a> in eastern India died, is fiercely debated by academics. The Telegraph described the famine as \u201ca lethal food shortage caused by natural disasters and exacerbated by local mismanagement and wartime supply problems\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, other academics argue that Churchill ignored warnings about rice shortages<\/a>, which were made worse by diverting food across the British empire during the conflict rather than keeping it in India.<\/p>\n

Cammock, who jointly won the Turner prize in 2019<\/a>, had been invited to create a work that responded to the NPG\u2019s collection. Persistence had been on temporary display for 10 months and was due to finish in August.<\/p>\n

The NPG said: \u201cThe aim of this project was to give artists the opportunity to create works as personal and creative responses to our collection. The work was presented as an artistic piece, not a documentary, and the views expressed in the film do not necessarily reflect those of the NPG.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added that the gallery recognised \u201cthe legacy of those portrayed on our walls, just as we respect artistic expression\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cammock said: \u201cNina Simone once said \u2018an artist\u2019s duty, as far as I\u2019m concerned, is to reflect the times\u2019 and sometimes this means revisiting, enquiry and challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An artwork by a Turner prize-winning artist has been removed from the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-721088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}