Artwork removed from National Portrait Gallery after row over Churchill’s role in Bengal famine

An artwork by a Turner prize-winning artist has been removed from the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) after a row about the role Winston Churchill played in the 1943 Bengal famine. The Persistence video installation by Helen Cammock was taken down on Monday after a week of criticism as pressure mounted on the gallery. The NPG faced calls for its removal from a group of 50 peers, including Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames, who objected to a line in the piece about his grandfather’s role in the event. In the work, Cammock, who narrates the 40-minute piece, discusses Oliver Cromwell’s campaigns in Ireland , saying “he starved people, en masse, a little like the wilful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill”. The line was at the centre of a row that escalated when a letter – signed by 50 peers – was sent to the gallery’s board by the historian and peer Andrew Roberts, who claimed the installation’s description of Churchill was an “ideologically motivated rant”. Winston Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames was among the signatories to the letter. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA Cammock’s work was also criticised by the Telegraph , which called her assertion that Churchill caused the famine “incorrect”. The artist and gallery had initially defended the work but on Monday evening the NPG confirmed it had been removed at Cammock’s request. “We respect her decision,” the gallery said in a statement. …