Yes, Really: There’s A Sculpture Of Hitler Praying At Winston Churchill’s Birthplace
Blenheim Palace Image by Getty/Tim Graham/Contributor
By PJ Grisar September 13, 2019
Update, September 14, 10:40 a.m.: This article has been updated subsequent to the September 14 theft of Catellan’s “America,” a 19-karat gold toilet.
Winston Churchill’s birthplace has just received an unlikely visitor: One Adolf Hitler.
Maurizio Cattelan’s “Him,” a sculpture of Hitler, seen in France in 2016. Image by Chesnot/Getty Images
The Italian artist and provocateur Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture “Him,” which depicts a kneeling, child-sized Führer, has been placed before a church organ at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Churchill, the late Prime Minister who guided the United Kingdom through World War II, was born in the palace, his family’s historic home, in 1874.
“Him” is only one provocative item on display in the temporary exhibit of Cattelan’s works at Blenheim. Among the other artworks included are a statue of Pope John Paul II downed by a meteorite, a statue of Pinocchio — staged lying face-down in a fountain on the estate’s grounds — and a long trail of Union Jack flags stitched together and designed to be tromped on as visitors enter the palace.
While Churchill, who swore to fight the Nazis on the beaches, landing grounds and more, would probably have mixed feelings about welcoming an effigy of Hitler into his boyhood stomping grounds, at least one of his relatives is on board. Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill, the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, told the BBC he was “delighted” to have Cattelan’s work in his family’s ancestral seat.
On the subject of seats, one of the exhibit’s most eye-catching holdings, a 19-carat gold toilet called “America” that Cattelan had offered to President Trump in 2017, was stolen from the palace on September 14. One man has been arrested, but, at press time, the artwork is still missing, prompting fears it may have been melted down.
Responding to the theft, Cattelan told The New York Times it was not a prank, but “deadly serious if even a little bit surreal.”
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected]
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
