The famous “Roaring Lion” photo of Winston Churchill was taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1941. Photo: Wikipedia

Prominent Tantramar photographer Thaddeus Holownia says he was astounded when he heard that the man who stole the “Roaring Lion” photo of Winston Churchill had been sentenced to two years in prison.

“It just seemed really, really severe for what actually happened, what the crime was,” Holownia said today during a telephone interview.

He added that the prominence and iconic status of the photo should not have had any bearing on the sentencing.

“It’s an important image, it’s iconic on some level or another to some people while for others, it’s just a picture of Winston Churchill,” he said.

“I don’t know how important that should have been in sentencing this poor gentleman.”

Holownia pointed out that the thief, Jeffrey Wood, had been trying to raise money to help his brother who suffered from a mental disorder.

He had no previous criminal record, pleaded guilty and expressed remorse.

Theft went unnoticed

In his judgment, Ontario Justice Robert Wadden wrote that Wood stole the photo from Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier hotel sometime in January 2022 replacing it with a cheap copy that carried a forged signature of the well-known Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh who had donated it to the hotel for permanent public display.

“As this was during the pandemic,” the judge wrote, “there was less activity than usual in the hotel. The theft went unnoticed for months.”

Wood sold the original photo through Sotheby’s auction house in London which estimated its sale price at approximately $26,000 CDN, but because it was damaged in transit, the famous photo went to an Italian lawyer in Genoa for just under $10,000 with Wood receiving about $4,500.

(The Italian collector, Nicola Cassinelli, voluntarily gave the photo back to the Chateau Laurier where it is now on display.)

Karsh snatches Churchill’s cigar

Justice Wadden reported that Karsh snapped the photo in 1941 just after Churchill had spoken to Canada’s Parliament about British determination to defeat Nazi Germany and its Axis allies during the Second World War.

“Karsh’s portrait session with Churchill was scheduled to last only two minutes,” Justice Wadden wrote, adding:

As Karsh was preparing, Churchill was smoking a cigar, which Karsh asked him to put down so the smoke did not interfere with the picture. Churchill refused, so just before taking the photograph, Karsh moved forward and snatched the cigar from Churchill’s mouth. The resulting belligerent scowl came to epitomize the fierce glare of the leader of a nation fearlessly confronting its enemy.

In 2016, the Bank of England used the Karsh photo of Churchill on its new five pound, plastic note. Image: Bank of England

Meantime, retired Mount Allison Fine Arts Professor Virgil Hammock says he feels that the two-year sentence is just about right because it will deter others from stealing and selling art.

At the same time, he says it was “sort of a victimless crime” not at all on the scale of what the Nazis did in their systematic plunder of European art treasures.

Hammock studied photography after enlisting in the U.S. Army and ended up taking photos in Korea in the late 1950s.

After that, he started in the photography program at the San Francisco Art Institute before switching to the study of painting.

“I’ve got quite a few books on Karsh,” he says.

“I admire his work. He’s a real master photographer, especially a master of using light.”

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To read the full Ontario Court of Justice ruling including the judge’s reasoning for the two-year prison sentence, click here.

For more about Thaddeus Holownia, click here.

To read Virgil Hammock’s extensive writings about Beauty & Art, click here.

NOTE: Although Churchill was a British hero during the Second World War, he was also an unapologetic racist who defended the many atrocities his country committed when it ruled over hundreds of millions in the world’s largest Empire.

Tantramar Councillor Bruce Phinney poses with the “Roaring Lion” while attending the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference earlier this month in Ottawa