National Portrait Gallery removes artwork after row over Churchill's legacy

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London has removed a video installation by British artist Helen Cammock after a row erupted over its characterisation of Winston Churchill’s role in the 1943 Bengal famine.The NPG had commissioned the artwork, titled "Persistence," as part of a project involving nine artists who offered a reflexive approach on portraiture. Cammock’s output was first exhibited in the London museum in September 2025 and was set to remain on display until August 2026.The museum said it challenges “the National Portrait Gallery’s position as an institution chiefly known for its representation and celebration of well-known sitters.”In the 40-minute film, which she narrates, Cammock mentions English stateman Oliver Cromwell’s 1600s military campaigns in Ireland and compares him to Winston Churchill. Cromwell, she says, had “starved people, en masse, a little like the willful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill.”Conservative newspaper The Telegraph slammed the comment - the sole reference to Churchill throughout the video - as incorrect in a 14 June article.The controversy escalated when historian Andrew Roberts asked for the artwork’s removal in an open letter to the NPG signed by 50 current and former members of the House of Lords, including Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames.The letter claimed the video’s description of the famed British prime minister was an “ideologically motivated rant.”“The accusation that [the famine] was deliberately visited upon Bengalis by Churchill is foul and vile. It is also historically ludicrous,” it added.Roberts, a Churchill biographer, said the 1943 Bengal famine was primarily caused by a typhoon and that the Churchill administration took measures to send grain as soon as it became aware of the situation.But Churchill’s role in the tragedy, which killed an estimated 3 million people in India, remains disputed.In 1981, Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen argued that the famine resulted not from a lack of food but from surging prices pushed by Britain’s wartime spending and exacerbated by inequalities and policy failures.The National Portrait Gallery initially said Cammock’s work reflected “her personal reflections on historical and current events”.“We support freedom of artistic expression while not necessarily endorsing the opinions expressed by any of the artists shown at the gallery,” it added.However, the Turner Prize-winning artist eventually opted to remove her video installation. “We respect her decision,” the gallery said. “Just as we acknowledge the opinions of those who were offended by what was said in the film.”“There is an incredible pressure on artists and arts institutions to bend to external pressure; to be benign at best and silent at worst,” Cammock said in a statement.“I 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.”