This was painted as a tribute to the great man shortly after his death in 1965. The artist was a great admirer of Sir Winston Churchill, having been a teenager in England during World War II. The portrait is directly based on the famous Yousuf Karsh photograph that was widely reproduced in the newspapers at that time. This is one of the first portraits that the artist did using her “scrub” technique, where she would lay the paint on with a brush and then scrub it off with a rag to leave a translucent stain behind. She initially developed the technique as a combination of a happy accident and a physical necessity following the dislocation of her right shoulder from a very serious car accident in the previous year.  The injury necessitated having the canvas angled on a surface in front of her rather than the traditional vertical orientation in an easel, as she physically couldn’t raise her arm horizontally and have the control she needed. It was while getting frustrated with her lack of precision and removing mistakes that she recognized the appeal of rubbing off the paint instead of leaving it in place and painting over it. The whole effect is further enhanced by the relatively coarse texture of the canvas showing through the paint stains.

The painting was eventually purchased by her ex-husband who was a big fan of Churchill and had served in the OSS during World War II, but that’s a subject for another day.

Additional information:  See the Karsh site for additional information about how this great photograph was made.
https://karsh.org/photographs/winston-churchill/

Below a crop from the original.