Clare Sheridan (1885-1970) - English sculptor, writer, and Sir Winston Churchill's cousin. A unique and important personal photograph album showing Sheridan's secret trip to Russia in the summer of 1920, along with a signed photograph by Winston Churchill.

In the summer of 1920, the first Soviet Russian trade delegation visited London. Sheridan met Lev Kamenev, a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. The two struck up a relationship and she holidayed with him on the Isle of Wight. Whilst there, Kamenev promised to arrange for her to visit Moscow with him, to further her sculpture work and to create busts of notable Russian figures. With deep unease around the world, the British authorities refused to issue her a visa. Instead, she sailed with Kamenev to Stockholm, where he obtained an Estonian visa for her which allowed her entry to Russia. Once there, she stayed in the Kremlin for two months where her sculpting subjects included Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Kamenev himself. She is reputed to have had affairs with more than one of her sitters. Winston Churchill, as Secretary of State for War, was pressing for British and allied intervention in the Russian revolution and was furious to learn of Sheridan's activities. When she returned to London, Churchill refused to see her, and she found herself widely shunned in polite society. MI5 kept a watch on Sheridan for the rest of her life, and they believed that she had been recruited as a spy for the Soviets, although this was later dismissed and she was labelled a 'mischief-maker.'

The period brown leather album contains eighty-three laid-in photographs, largely taken by Sheridan, and most annotated alongside in pencil, in her hand. Some - but not all - were published in her Russian Portraits (1921) and Mayfair To Moscow (1921) diaries. Our research indicates that approximately fifty percent of the images are previously unpublished and unseen. Some of the photographs are faded, whilst others are not.

Throughout the album Lev Kamenev is referred to as 'Kameneff' (the alternative Anglicised spelling being well documented in Sheridan's diary). Other names and places are alternatively spelled; either Anglicised, or simply by error. Most of these alternate spellings also align with her diary.

The album starts in August 1920 and two images show Sheridan & Kamenev at the residence of Sidney Russell-Cooke on the Isle Of Wight. 'Self & Kameneff in Russell-Cook's garden, Isle Of Wight'. One photograph shows Kamenev and Russell-Cooke, the other is a relaxed pose with Kamenev and Sheridan sitting close together, smiling for the camera. It was during this trip that Kamenev convinced Sheridan to make a trip to Moscow, and the conversation is well noted in Sheridan's diary (August 28th 1920). Within two weeks, the trip was planned and made. The next two pages of photographs depict the start of Sheridan's journey on SS Jupiter, with 'Sydney R.C. sees us off' (this too is well documented in her diary) and 'Kameneff & I start for Moscow'. En route to Moscow, they passed through Oslo and Sheridan has photographed a memorial 'enroute from Oslo - memorial to Scott at a railway station'. The next pages feature large format photographs taken by Sheridan in Oslo and show a meeting between Kamenev and Maxim Litvinov (Sheridan spells this 'Litvinoff') and Litvinov's son, Sacha (we believe this to be a mis-remembering by Sheridan as Litvinov's son's name was actually Mischa. This error was corrected in her published diaries). These particular images were published by Sheridan in 1921, however one particular photograph showing Kamenev, Litvinov and Misha is known to exist only in defaced form - with Kamenev removed. The photograph in this album is the full original image. The next pages are dated 'Sept 20' and two images depict a train journey, annotated 'En route for Moscow - Kameneff's son and I cross the frontier on the engine,' and 'Kameneff at the Russian frontier (his son on the engine)'. The next three images depict 'remnants of civil war' - damaged bridges, taken from the train. The larger of these images was published, the others are alternative unpublished views. From these photographs onwards, all the images taken show Sheridan's time in Moscow and include images variously annotated: 'In the Kremlin - entrance on right to Kameneff's apt,' 'Arrive at the Kremlin,' 'Anna the maid in the window of the Kameneff apt, Kremlin,' 'view from the window in the Kremlin,' 'Kremlin - our Rolls Royce!' 'Self in the Kremlin,' 'The red guard, Kremlin,' 'a corner of the Kremlin - the cathedral?' 'The great bell - Kremlin,' one larger annotated page reads 'I have nothing to do & I can't get outside the Kremlin, so I wander about with my Kodak - Sept 1920' followed by several views of the interior perimeter of the Kremlin, 'The courtyard outside my studio,' 'the great canon taken from Napoleon,' several photographs of the Sofiyskaya 'this is where I was finally housed,' a large format photograph of Leon Trotsky & Lev Kamenev's sons playing - annotated 'Serge Trotski (left) and Alexander Kameneff (right).' Two larger format photographs follow showing 'Imperial eagle flung down from the top of the museum - Moscow, 1920', followed by further views of the Kremlin. Five more laid-in images depict statues in Moscow 'statue of Dostoevski in a square in Moscow.' The next page shows Theodore Rothstein outside the Kremlin (mis-identified by Sheridan as 'Rosenberg (expelled from England)', a previously undocumented photograph of Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg (Mikhail Borodin) taken by Sheridan annotated 'Michael Borodin' appears to have been taken in her studio / apartment in the Kremlin. This is followed by views of a Moscow market 'but nothing to buy,' Sheridan writes. To the penultimate page of the album are three photographs annotated 'photos of the revolution given me by the (illegible) and propaganda,' and 'Kameneff addressing a crowd.' These three images all feature signatures to the by an unknown hand, presumably the original photographer. The final photograph is annotated 'famous photo, published so often - showing the fighting in the streets of Petrograd' - this image too was likely given to Sheridan. The rest of the album is unfilled. Album size: 22cm x 16cm.

Clare Consuelo Sheridan (1885-1970) was an English sculptor, and writer, known primarily for creating busts for famous sitters and keeping travel diaries. A cousin of Sir Winston Churchill, whom she embarrassed with her wild behaviour. She married in 1910 and had three children, one of whom died in 1914. She modelled an angel for the grave and discovered a talent for sculpture. After her husband's death during the First World War she exhibited her sculptures. She was an admirer of communism, and visited the Soviet Union in 1920 against the advice of Churchill and the British Government. There, she sculpted Lenin and Trotsky, later publishing her diaries. This infuriated Churchill who was very anti-Bolshevik and it caused the first of the ‘scandals’ that would keep her name buzzing on the world’s press wires for the next 30 years. She then went to America, where she settled, becoming friends with Charlie Chaplin. Now older, she took her children to live in Algeria and continued to sculpt and write. She died in 1970.

NOTE: in respect to the eventual purchaser, and to safeguard the unseen nature of the images, only a handful have been illustrated here. Further images of the unpublished photographs will not be shown or sent for any reason. In-person viewing can be arranged on a strict one-to-one basis but no copying or photography of the album will be allowed.