Overview
- Helen Cammock decided to remove her 40‑minute video Persistence from the National Portrait Gallery on June 22, ending a ten‑month display in the Artists First exhibition.
- The work included a narration that described the “wilful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill,” a line that drew the central complaint against the piece.
- An open letter led by Churchill biographer Lord Andrew Roberts and signed by over 50 peers, including Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames, publicly condemned the claim and prompted complaints to the gallery.
- The National Portrait Gallery said the film was an artistic, not documentary, work, that the views expressed did not reflect the institution, and that it respected the artist’s decision to withdraw the piece.
- Historians remain divided over causes of the 1943 Bengal famine, which is estimated to have killed about three million people, and the episode has renewed debates about museums’ role in hosting contested historical claims and the pressure such disputes place on artists and institutions.