From washing dishes in Newmarket to Royal commissions, leading equestrian artist Charles Church answers the 19 random questions
Interview by Sally Cooper
All images: Courtenay Hitchcock
Charles Church’s reputation as a quiet man was up for debate when he arrived for his interview in a throaty vintage Sunbeam Alpine with the top down, cheerfully calling out, ‘Morning! It looks like rain – can I use the garage?’
North Dorset resident Charles is an internationally-renowned painter of horses, landscapes and country life, particularly recognised for his portraits of racehorses. He describes his childhood as a rural happy life ‘in the middle of nowhere’ on a Northumberland farm. Even as a young child Charles knew he could paint: ‘Around the age of eight or nine I really started to enjoy painting, and found that I had some sort of knack for it. But I was about 15 when I really got the bug, the same time I got hooked on racing at school. I went to a boarding school in Northamptonshire, and the school had a betting office right next to the house. I used to scoot across in the afternoons and watch the racing between lessons! At the same time, I took up painting more seriously, and horses were the first thing I wanted to paint. I’ve literally just kept on painting them!’
However, instant artistic success wasn’t a given – Charles achieved an E in his Art A-level. ‘I will blame the history of art teacher for one part! However, there were three parts to the exam, and all three seemed to go wrong. Firstly, that art history, then they gave you a random title to paint, and I ended up painting a racing scene that had absolutely nothing to do with the title. So I probably got zero for that. The third and final task was a life drawing, during which the model got up and flounced out halfway through, so that didn’t really work out either!
‘From school, I did a standard one-year art school foundation course in Newcastle, with two weeks in each different area like photography, 3D design, print etc. before they decide what you should specialise in. Unfortunately, the art department didn’t think I was conceptual enough! So I was given no choice but to specialise in graphic design and illustration, which wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. I went on to Bournemouth to do wildlife illustration, which again was not what I wanted to do. I was trying to paint horses, and this was the closest thing I could get to it. But it seemed to serve no purpose, so I dropped out after the first term. My parents probably hit an all-time low with my career at that point!’
Florence via Newmarket
Charles instead wrote to every stud and hotel in Newmarket to see if he could get a job “in horse land”. Finally, he landed washing up in a hotel for two weeks – he stayed for a year and a half.
‘I did the morning and evening shifts washing dishes, and painted in the daytime. It was brilliant. Then a local gallery started to exhibit my work.’ Charles heard of a new art school in Florence and wrote to the Charles H Cecil Studios immediately. Their response was instant – he was invited to just turn up, there were no requirements. Looking back, he realises that he was lucky: no portfolio or exam results were required as they are today.
‘Then the Newmarket art gallery did the kindest and most amazing thing. They bought my entire collection of paintings, giving me the money to go abroad. So the Florence adventure commenced!’
The training was in the atelier tradition – in which a master painter opens his studio to a select group of dedicated students – and the work returned students to the traditional portrait painting form of sight-size, painting something direct from life in the same scale as you see it, directly onto your easel. Charles jokes that it was a style developed by ‘quite a well-known artist called Leonardo da Vinci’.
When Charles returned to England, he began painting equestrian portraits from life, which involved long stays in country houses – convenient for a poor young artist!
‘When I got a commission to paint a hunter, I’d go and stay with the people for a few weeks in their country home,’ he says. ‘I could write a book on some of the funny experiences I had. But it could be really difficult – after about four days, you’ve really outstayed your welcome. It doesn’t matter how good or how well-behaved you are, you are in someone’s private space. And then you’ve got them leaning over your shoulder the whole time, looking at what you’re doing and questioning you …
But the biggest pain was the English weather! You could have five straight days of rain, and you are literally sitting around doing nothing all day.
‘After about three years, I decided I’d change things. I’d go and stay with people for a week tops, and paint a study from life of them and/or their horse or landscape, backed up with sketches and photographs for me to work on in my own studio.’
Slapping it down
King Charles has described Charles Church as “an artist who has a unique sensitivity and profound understanding of his subject.”
‘I was incredibly lucky to have him endorse me,’ says Charles. ‘He wrote the foreword to my first exhibition in London, which is quite something.’
Charles is no stranger to working with heads of state and famous people: ‘In some ways it’s daunting, but most of the time when you meet these people, they’re very easy and down to earth. Not what you expect. The first three years that I spent staying in country houses actually set me in good stead. It was difficult to begin with because I was pretty shy, but the more you relax, the more they relax, which helps everyone!’
Agreeing an initial brief with a client has caused some issues in the past.
‘I’ve learned that if you give people too much of what they want, you ‘ll get a bad result,’ he says. ‘A client will say, “I would really like my wife on a hunter in the field here with this hill behind and the Labrador to the left”… No!
‘My initial response is always to completely change every part! If someone’s got a clear idea in their head, you can never live up to their vision.
‘Luckily, most clients trust me now, and say, “I’ll leave it up to you”. They get the best result!’
Some of Charles’ more recent pieces have been enormous, and Charles explains that the size of a piece can depend on whether it might be intended to hang in a particular place. But he looks slightly confused.
‘I couldn’t even tell you why it is,’ he admits. ‘I just know that it’s going to work at a certain size. Certain things work better at certain sizes; that is the fact of the matter!
‘I take a lot of time to really study the horse. I have the horse brought out, walk it around a lot. I just really look and take it all into my mind, so that I have totally captured it in my head. And then I am a bit haphazard – I like to just put something down on the canvas, and then alter it. I have taught, and I see some students trying to draw an outline of the back of the horse very slowly … I just say, “Come on, just slap something down!” I’m not linear. I’m more of a tonal painter.’
Charles is also a proponent of turning paintings to the wall in his studio: ‘It’s an essential part of the process of painting,’ he says. ‘If you look at it too often, you can’t see all the mistakes and areas for development. You must have fresh eyes when you’re working. If I go away for two weeks, I come back to the studio and have a brilliant day. I’ll do it two or three times during the process of one painting.’
A neighbour of Stubbs
First showing the finished work to the client was no doubt an intimidating experience, but now that he is so established, presumably it is no longer such an ordeal.
‘It’s still as nerve-wracking as ever!’ he says. ‘It doesn’t get easier. It wouldn’t matter how good I got at painting, and I’m still challenging myself all the time. But it’s always nerve-wracking because they’ve put an awful lot of trust in you, you’ve got to pull it out of the bag!’
Rumour has it that Charles is a very fussy framer? ‘Yes, that is true! The frame can ruin the piece. It all stems from a painting I did in Newmarket all those years ago. It was a painting of some mares and foals, one of my very first commissions. They framed it, and when I went round to varnish it I was absolutely horrified by the frame they’d put it in! You can paint a really wonderful painting, and then absolutely destroy it with the wrong frame. So, yes, I do select my own frames now!’
In 2023, Queen Camilla unveiled Charles’ largest piece to date (six foot by seven foot), The Belvoir Huntsman, John Holliday, on ‘Edward’ in Belvoir Woods (opposite), which hangs in the National Horseracing Museum at Newmarket beside a Stubbs. Even the laid-back Charles admits that this is something special: ‘All those years ago, washing dishes in Newmarket, I used to walk around the collection. To have a painting there is just surreal.’
Charles lives in a tiny North Dorset village with his studio in the garden. He and his wife Alice married during the pandemic, and they have two young sons.
‘I’m no longer just thinking about myself – I’ve got a family, and they’re wonderful.’
But have they picked up a paintbrush yet? Charles smiles and nods. ‘I haven’t pushed it on them at all, but Freddie likes a bit of painting. And I think Arthur’s going to be musical – if you put him at the piano, he plays boogie woogie, which is pretty good going for nine months old!’
And so to the 19 random questions …
- What’s your relationship with Dorset?
Blissful! I moved here in about 1996 and love it. - What was the last song you sang out loud in your car
Money by Pink Floyd. - The last film you watched – and would you recommend it?
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark – and of course, I love it! - It’s Friday night, you have the house to yourself, no work is allowed. What will you do?
That’s difficult because I probably would work, but I suppose I’d have to watch a film - The best biscuit for dunking
Choco Leibniz. - What shop can you not pass without going in?
Harts of Stur of course! - What’s a sound or smell that makes you happy?
Easy – the smell of sawdust. It reminds me of my childhood, and the smell of my father’s organ-building workshop. - What’s your secret superpower?
I would say thinking hard and long about paintings. The detail and memory. IF I have a superpower, and I’m not sure I do, but if I have one, it’s probably just putting the thought in. - What was the last gift you gave or received?
I gave my godson a basketball for his birthday. - What’s your comfort meal?
Shepherd’s pie. - What would you like to tell your 15-year-old self?
Keep going. Never give up. Persevere … it worked for me! - Your favourite quote?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! - Tell us about a book you read and loved recently?
Spitfire by John Nicol, about the history of the Spitfire, the pilots who flew them, and their families. It’s an amazing book. - Cats or dogs?
Both, but dogs if I had to choose. - If I wasn’t an artist, I would have liked to have been a …
… bloodstock agent. I just love looking at horses. So it would have been another good option. - What little luxury would you buy with £10?
Chocolates for my wife. - What would Alice say was your most annoying trait?
My snoring! - Chip shop chips or home baked cake?
I’d go chips. - What in life is frankly a mystery to you?
How some of the old Master painters did some of the things that they did. Some of those enormous canvases that you see – how on earth did they do it? It’s the complexity of it, how they worked it out and how they did things at such scale. Having worked on that large painting I did for Palace House, it made me understand how incredibly difficult it is working at scale
charleschurch.net
