Stanley Spencer

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Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – December 1959) was an English painter.

Spencer began painting depicting Biblical scenes in Cookham, the small village where he was born and spent significant portions of his life, just shy of graduating from the Slade School of Art.

Spencer referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven" and in his biblical scenes, fellow-villagers are depicted as their Gospel counterparts.

Spencer was an expert at coordinating multi-figure compositions, such as in his large paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, the former being a commission for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second World War. Spencer's early visionary years often produced landscapes for commercial use, and the vigor of his early visionary years diminished somewhat, but elements of eccentricity came closer.

Despite the fact that his compositions became more claustrophobic and his use of color less vivid, he maintained an interest to detail in his paintings, akin to that of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Spencer's writings often reference his fervent, albeit unconventional Christian faith.

He was particularly keen on scenes in Cookham that demonstrated the compassion he felt for his fellow people and also his romantic and sexual obsessions.

Spencer's works were initially causing a lot of curiosity and controversies.

They still seem stylistic and experimental today, although the nude works portrayed his futile friendship with his second wife, Patricia Preece, like the Leg of mutton nude, foreshadow some of Lucian Freud's later works.

Spencer's early work is considered a synthesis of French Post-Impressionism, as exemplified by Paul Gauguin, as well as early Italian painting typified by Giotto.

Spencer remained an independent artist in later life and did not participate in any of the period's artistic movements, although he did have three exhibits at the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912.

Early life

Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, Berkshire, and the eighth living child of William and Anna Caroline Spencer (née Slack). Par's father, who is more commonly known as Par, was a music teacher and organist. Gilbert Spencer (1892-1999), Stanley Spencer's younger brother (1892–1979), became a well-known artist, known primarily for his landscape paintings. Spencer's grandfather Julius Spencer had designed "Fernlea" on Cookham High Street. Stanley Spencer was educated at home by his sisters Annie and Florence, though his parents were concerned about the local council school but could not afford private tutoring for him. Gilbert and Stanley, on the other hand, took drawing lessons from Dorothy Bailey, a local artist. Gilbert was eventually sent to a Maidenhead school, but the family didn't agree that this would be beneficial to Stanley, who was growing into a solitary teenager who was still showing a passion for drawing. Par Spencer sought advice from Lord and Lady Boston, and Lady Boston suggested Stanley spend time drawing with her each week. Lady Boston arranged for Stanley to attend Maidenhead Technical Institute, where his father insisted he should not take any exams.

Spencer studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he was a student of Henry Tonks and others from 1908 to 1912. Dora Carrington, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Isaac Rosenberg, and David Bomberg were among his contemporaries at the Slade. He was so attached to Cookham that he would take the train back home in time for tea most days. It even became his nickname: Christopher R. W. Nevinson, Spencer's fellow student, dubbed him Cookham, a term that Spencer himself began using for a while. Spencer was at the Slade while working for a short-lived group named "Neo-Primitives" that was centered on Bomberg and William Roberts.

In 1912, Spencer exhibited John Donne Arriving in Heaven and a sketch in the British section of the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition curated by Roger Fry in London. He painted The Nativity in the same year that he painted the same year as well. He received a Slade Composition Award and started painting Apple Gatherers, which was also on display in the first Contemporary Art Society exhibition the following year. Spencer's Servant of Zacharias and Elizabeth in 1914 completed Zacharias and Elizabeth, as well as The Centurion's Servant. The last painting featured not only Spencer himself as the servant but also his brothers and the bed from his own nursery. He also started working on a self-portrait. A self-portrait (1914) was painted in Wisteria Cottage, a decaying Georgian house Spencer rented from a local coalman in Cookham, for use as a studio. The painting, which is painted in a mirror, is bold and penetrating gaze, softened by the deep shadow on the right hand side – the head fills the picture space and is painted one and a half times life size. The artist Henry Lamb had purchased Apple Gatherers and had sold it to art collector Edward Marsh immediately. Marsh later acquired Self-portrait and thought it to be "masterfully...glowing with genius."

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