BY KAREN BOSSICK

Therapists often tout the value of art as therapy. And, indeed, painting proved the saving grace for Winston Churchill after a disastrous year in which he was blamed for the failure of the Dardanelles campaign during World War I and was forced out of government altogether.

“I thought he would die of grief,” his wife Clementine said after watching her discouraged husband go so far as to volunteer to serve on the frontlines in France at the age of 40.

Lee Pollock, Sun Valley’s resident Winston Churchill expert, will tell how the muse of painting came to Churchill’s rescue and how it became a passion that sustained him for the rest of his life in a free presentation at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23, at Ketchum’s Community Library.

Pollock said Churchill studied such masters as Monet and Cezanne and ended up painting more than 500 pictures. He particularly loved to paint en plein air—or, on location—in the English countryside, French Riviera and in such cities as Marrakech, Venice and Miami Beach.

He was good at it, too. Today his work is coveted around the world, with one of his pictures recently selling for $11.5 million.

“Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely,” he wrote. “Light and color, peace and hope will keep them company to the end of their days.”

Pollock, who annually acquaints Sun Valley-area residents with fascinating tales about Churchill, is a trustee of The International Churchill Society. He served as its executive director for five years through November 2016 and led the development and planning for the National Churchill Library and Center in Washington, D.C.

Attendees are encouraged to reserve their place at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/8909140. The presentation may also be watched online that evening or later at https://vimeo.com/737962513.