Blair Gives Churchill To Bush

A bronze bust of Winston Churchill, owned by the British Government Art Collection and paid for by the taxpayer, is at the centre of a row after it was loaned by Tony Blair to George W Bush. The renowned Jacob Epstein sculpture that sits in President Bush's Oval Office was loaned to the White House four years ago, on orders from Blair's office, in an unprecedented act outside the strict remit of the collection. The government's huge hidden collection is held inside an anonymous underground storehouse in Soho and contains around 12,000 works of art. The curators are given £200,000 a year to buy new pieces and the art is available for government ministers to request for display in their private offices. It is also sent out all over the globe to foreign embassies and consulates. The collection includes 2,300 paintings and watercolours and 8,000 historical and modern prints, with sculptures by artists such as Hepworth, and 18 oil paintings by Sickert. Along with a Hogarth and a Gainsborough, the GAC also owns an early Freud and an obscure work by Constable. For the full story - click the title Irish Art