This article is about the artist. For the balloonist, see Stanley Spencer (aeronaut).
Sir Stanley Spencer
Self-portrait, 1959
Born
(1891-06-30)30 June 1891
Cookham, England
Died
14 December 1959(1959-12-14) (aged 68)
Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, England
Education
Maidenhead Technical Institute;
Slade School of Fine Art
Known for
Painting, drawing
Notable work
The Resurrection, Cookham
Awards
RA 1950; CBE 1950; Knighted 1959
Patron(s)
Louis and Mary Behrend
Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Spencer referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven" and in his biblical scenes, fellow-villagers are shown as their Gospel counterparts. Spencer was skilled at organising 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 First World War memorial while the latter was a commission for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second World War.
As his career progressed Spencer often produced landscapes for commercial necessity and the intensity of his early visionary years diminished somewhat while elements of eccentricity came more to the fore. Although his compositions became more claustrophobic and his use of colour less vivid he maintained an attention to detail in his paintings akin to that of the Pre-Raphaelites.[1] Spencer's works often express his fervent if unconventional Christian faith. This is especially evident in the scenes that he based in Cookham which show the compassion that he felt for his fellow residents and also his romantic and sexual obsessions. Spencer's works originally provoked great shock and controversy. Nowadays, they still seem stylistic and experimental, while the nude works depicting his futile relationship with his second wife, Patricia Preece, such as the Leg of mutton nude, foreshadow some of the much later works of Lucian Freud. Spencer's early work is regarded as a synthesis of French Post-Impressionism, exemplified for instance by Paul Gauguin, plus early Italian painting typified by Giotto.[2] In later life Spencer remained an independent artist and did not join any of the artistic movements of the period, although he did show three works at the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912.[3]
^Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
^Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2005). Treasures from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Te Papa Press. p. 56. ISBN 1-877385-12-3.
^Cite error: The named reference Edwardians was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Sir StanleySpencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well...
The StanleySpencer Gallery is an art museum in the South of England dedicated to the life and work of the artist StanleySpencer. It was opened in 1962...
associated with the Bloomsbury Group, and the second wife of painter StanleySpencer, for whom she modelled. It was later discovered that nearly all of...
painter StanleySpencer. Born at Cookham, Berkshire, on 4 August 1892, thirteen months after his more famous brother Stanley, Gilbert Spencer was the...
of the artist George Francis Carline, and first wife of the artist StanleySpencer. She studied art under the Post-Impressionist Percyval Tudor-Hart,...
portrait) is an oil on canvas painting by British artist StanleySpencer. It depicts Spencer and his soon-to-be second wife, Patricia Preece, beside a...
Unity Spencer (24 May 1930 – 18 October 2017) was a British artist. She was the daughter of artists StanleySpencer and Hilda Carline. Unity Spencer was...
Methodist chapel was built in 1846 and extended in 1911. It now houses the StanleySpencer Gallery. Cookham is home to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, based...
British painter StanleySpencer wouldn't live with him – and, it turns out, she didn't paint her own pictures". SFGate. "Sir StanleySpencer Stands Alone"...
was built to accommodate a series of paintings by the English artist StanleySpencer. It was commissioned by Mary and John Louis Behrend (1881–1972) as...
The Spencer family is an aristocratic family in the United Kingdom. From the 16th century, its members have held numerous titles, including the dukedom...
Reverend Seymour Mills Spencer (27 March 1812 – 30 April 1898) was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He and his wife Ellen StanleySpencer followed an ambition...
and shoulders in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1911, the young StanleySpencer devoted a visionary painting to John Donne arriving in heaven (1911)...
Modest Mussorgsky The Nursery (Christmas Stockings) (1936), painting by StanleySpencer (76.5x91.8cm) Garden centre, independent, or lawn and garden departments...
during World War I. Chute was a close friend of StanleySpencer, from 1915, and the period when Spencer was a medical orderly at the Beaufort War Hospital...
Fuchs, the French Symbolist Odilon Redon, Brion Gysin, Max Ernst, StanleySpencer, Edward Burne-Jones, Adolf Wolfli, Fred Sandback, William Blake, Hieronymus...
director Stanley Kramer. It was for Kramer that he made his last film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), completed just 17 days before he died. Spencer Bonaventure...
and 1930s towards realism took place. Artists such as British Artist StanleySpencer led this re-appropriated approach to the human figure in Britain, with...
students Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson and StanleySpencer. Another cherished period followed the Second World War, under the...
France. The first British designed and built airship was constructed by StanleySpencer, and on 22 September 1902 was flown 30 miles (48 km) from Crystal Palace...
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