NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY WITHDRAWS CHURCHILL VIDEO AFTER PEERS' LETTER

The National Portrait Gallery in central London has withdrawn a 40-minute video installation by artist Helen Cammock following objections from more than 50 peers, including Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson. The work, titled Persistence, contained a reference to "the wilful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill" during the 1943 Bengal famine. Lord Roberts of Belgravia, a Churchill biographer, led the signatories in sending an open letter to the gallery characterising the installation's description as an "ideologically motivated rant". Cammock has removed the work from display.

The video installation had been on temporary display for ten months as part of an exhibition entitled 'Artists First: Contemporary Perspectives on Portraiture', with the display scheduled to end in August. In the narrated work, Cammock explored Oliver Cromwell's 17th-century military campaigns in Ireland, drawing a parallel between Cromwell's actions and Churchill's role in the Bengal famine. Approximately three million people died during the Bengal famine in eastern India. The nature of Churchill's responsibility for the famine has been the subject of long-standing academic dispute, with Lord Roberts stating that a typhoon caused the famine and that Churchill instructed his war cabinet to make every effort to assist those affected and to seek grain supplies from international leaders.

In a statement, Cammock, a Turner Prize winner, said she rejected "pressure on artists and arts institutions to bend to external pressure" and described questioning and challenging ideas and histories as vital to a healthy society. The National Portrait Gallery confirmed to BBC News that the artist had removed her work. Cammock stated that whilst her installation was not a documentary, audiences should "hear it out".