SIMI VALLEY : Exhibit of Churchill Artworks Planned

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday received the first painting in what is planned to be a full-scale exhibit of Winston Churchill’s artwork, tentatively scheduled to open to the public in December.

Library Director Ralph C. Bledsoe has been working for several weeks with Churchill family members in hopes of securing about two dozen of the former British prime minister’s paintings for exhibit. The collection has most recently been on display at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y.

“It’s going to happen,” Bledsoe said of the exhibit Wednesday after receiving the first painting, which was shipped from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan.

“We are now moving ahead full blast with it, getting the paintings here. . . . Many of them we have crated up at locations around the country, and they will come here from there.”

Bledsoe said the exhibit, which will include personal Churchill artifacts as well as artworks, probably will open in mid-December and run about two months.

“We’ve got a line on one of his cigars,” he said.

Bledsoe said his staff is working on scheduling the exhibit and finding a time for a formal opening at which Reagan would meet with Churchill family members and other dignitaries.