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Animals occupied a central place in John Craxton’s Mediterranean world, reflecting his lifelong fascination with the Greek landscape, wildlife, and everyday life. Among them, cats held a particular significance. Independent, elegant, and observant, they became recurring companions in his paintings and prints, embodying the warmth, rhythm, and curiosity about the ordinary.

This enduring theme is celebrated in Animal Encounters, on view at The Lightbox Gallery, from 11 July to 4 October 2026. Drawn from The Ingram Collection, the exhibition explores the many ways in which British artists have represented animals, bringing together paintings, prints, and sculpture from across the twentieth century.

Winston Churchill took to painting for solace during the First World War, and it sustained him for the rest of his long life, when he went on to beat Hitler in war and art. His exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London, until 29 November 2026, is a thrilling revelation.

Churchill and John Craxton met in the summer of 1960, when the elderly statesman sailed to Crete on Aristotle Onassis’s yacht, and the painter gate-crashed the Chania welcoming party (aided by fellow cruise guest Margot Fonteyn). War heroes presented ‘the Father of Victory’ with a ceremonial dagger, but Craxton delighted him with art talk and a plot to sketch together the following day. Both revered bright colour and brilliant light. Churchill had already painted the Todra Gorge in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and Craxton planned to show him the nearby ravine at Theriso.

But Cretan dignitaries stepped in, and Craxton was moved down-table. Next morning Churchill was driven to the spot near Herakleion where Patrick Leigh Fermor and a band of partisans had kidnapped General Kreipe – the German commander of Crete – in 1944. Then, returned to Souda Bay, he sailed into history.