Who is Stanley Spencer?

Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959) was an English painter. Shortly after rejection the Slade School of Art, Spencer became skillfully known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the little village touching 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 bright 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 innate a First World War memorial though 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 announcement necessity and the intensity of his at the forefront visionary years diminished somewhat even though elements of eccentricity came more to the fore. Although his compositions became more claustrophobic and his use of colour less radiant he maintained an attention to detail in his paintings akin to that of the Pre-Raphaelites. Spencer’s works often song his Eager if later Christian faith. This is especially evident in the scenes that he based in Cookham which take effect the compassion that he felt for his fellow residents and as well as his loving and sexual obsessions. Spencer’s works originally provoked good shock and controversy. Nowadays, they nevertheless 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 future works of Lucian Freud. Spencer’s early accomplishment is regarded as a synthesis of French Post-Impressionism, exemplified for instance by Paul Gauguin, plus to the front Italian painting typified by Giotto. In middle age Spencer remained an independent player and did not partner any of the artistic movements of the period, although he did play-act three works at the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912.