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'''Sir Stanley Spencer''', [[CBE]] [[Royal Academy of Arts|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.<ref name="Spalding">{{cite book|author=[[Frances Spalding]]|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1990|title=20th Century Painters and Sculptors |isbn=1-85149-106-6}}</ref> Spencer's works often express his fervent if unconventional [[Christianity|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]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa |title=Treasures from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa |publisher=Te Papa Press |year=2005 |isbn=1-877385-12-3 |pages=56}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Edwardians"/>
==Early life==
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Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, [[Berkshire]], the eighth surviving child of William and Anna Caroline Spencer (née Slack).<ref name="SpencerGallery2014">{{cite web | last = Stanley Spencer Gallery. | title = Stanley Spencer – A Short Biography. | publisher = Stanley Spencer Gallery. | url = http://stanleyspencer.org.uk/about/| access-date = 4 September 2018}}</ref> His father, usually known as Par, was a music teacher and church organist. Stanley's younger brother, [[Gilbert Spencer]] (1892–1979), also became a notable artist, known principally for his landscape paintings. The family home, "Fernlea", on Cookham High Street, had been built by Spencer's grandfather Julius Spencer. Stanley Spencer was educated at home by his sisters Annie and Florence, as his parents had reservations about the local council school but could not afford private education for him. However, Gilbert and Stanley took drawing lessons from a local artist, Dorothy Bailey. Eventually, Gilbert was sent to a school in Maidenhead, but the family did not feel this would be beneficial for Stanley, who was developing into a solitary teenager given to long walks, yet with a passion for drawing. Par Spencer approached local landowners, Lord and Lady Boston, for advice, and Lady Boston agreed Stanley could spend time drawing with her each week. In 1907 Lady Boston arranged for Stanley to attend Maidenhead Technical Institute, where his father insisted he should not take any exams.<ref name="DBHcrisis"/>
From 1908 to 1912, Spencer studied at the [[Slade School of Fine Art]] in London, under [[Henry Tonks]] and others. His contemporaries at the Slade included [[Dora Carrington]], [[Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot]], [[Mark Gertler (artist)|Mark Gertler]], [[Paul Nash (artist)|Paul Nash]], [[Edward Wadsworth]], [[Isaac Rosenberg]] and [[David Bomberg]].<ref name="DBHcrisis">{{cite book|author=[[David Boyd Haycock]]|publisher=Old Street Publishing (London)|year=2009|title=A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War|isbn=978-1-905847-84-6}}</ref> So profound was his attachment to Cookham that most days he would take the train back home in time for tea. It even became his nickname: his fellow student [[
| author = Ysanne Holt
| title = British Artists and the Modernist Landscape.
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==Burghclere, 1927–1932==
The [[Sandham Memorial Chapel]] in [[Burghclere]] was a colossal undertaking. Spencer's paintings cover a twenty-one foot high, seventeen-and-half foot wide end wall, eight seven foot high [[lunette]]s, each above a [[predella]], with two twenty-eight feet long irregularly shaped strips between the lunettes and the ceiling.<ref name="CNahum">{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/sandham-memorial-chapel-stanley-spencers-visions-of-war|title=Sandham Memorial Chapel: Stanley Spencer's visions of war|date=11 November 2020|author=Chloe Nahum|access-date=20 November 2020}}</ref> The Behrends were exceptionally generous patrons and not only paid for the chapel to be built to Spencer's specifications but also paid the rent on the London studio where he completed ''The Resurrection, Cookham'' and built a house for him and Hilda to live in nearby while working at Burghclere, as Spencer would be painting the canvases ''in situ''.<ref name="Hauser">{{cite book|author=Kitty Hauser|publisher=Tate Publishing|year=2001|title=Stanley Spencer (British Artists series)|isbn=1-85437-351-X}}</ref> The chapel was designed to Spencer's specifications by the architect [[Lionel Pearson]] and was modelled on [[Giotto]]'s [[Arena Chapel]] in [[Padua]].<ref name="NTtres">{{cite book|author=Adrian Tinniswood (
The sixteen paintings in the chapel are double hung on opposite walls akin to the progression of altarpieces in a Renaissance church nave.<ref name="CNahum"/> The series begins with a lunette depicting shell-shocked troops arriving at the gates of Beaufort, continues with a scene of kit inspection at the RAMC Training Depot in Hampshire which is followed by scenes of Macedonia.<ref name="Dorment">{{cite web |author=Richard Dorment|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/10505518/Stanley-Spencer-at-Somerset-House-review.html|title=Stanley Spencer, at Somerset House, review |date=10 December 2013|access-date=28 January 2014|work=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref><ref name="PGjourney">{{cite book|author=Paul Gough|publisher=Sansom and Company (Bristol)|year=2006|title=Stanley Spencer: Journey to Burghclere|isbn=1-904537-46-4}}</ref> Spencer did not depict heroism and sacrifice, but rather in panels such as ''Scrubbing the Floor'', ''Bedmaking'', ''Filling Tea Urns'' and ''Sorting and Moving Kit Bags'',<ref name="KBell"/> the unremarkable everyday facts of daily life in camp or hospital and a sense of human companionship rarely found in civilian life as he remembered events from Beaufort, Macedonia and Tweseldown Camp.<ref name="Hauser"/><ref name="NTtres"/> Such is the absence of violence in the panels, ''The Dugout'' panel was based on Spencer's thought of "how marvellous it would be if one morning, when we came out of our dug-outs, we found that somehow everything was peace and the war was no more."<ref name="ODArt"/> The scene, ''Map Reading'' offers a contrast to the dark earth of the hospital and military camps in the other panels and shows a company of soldiers resting by a roadside paying little attention to the only officer depicted among the hundreds of figures Spencer painted for the chapel. Bilberry bushes fill the background of the painting, making the scene appear green and Arcadian which seems to prefigure the paradise promised in the ''Resurrection of the Soldiers'' on the end, altar, wall.<ref name="Must See"/> Spencer imagined the ''Resurrection of the Soldiers'' taking place outside the walled village of Kalinova in Macedonia with soldiers rising out of their graves and handing in identical white crosses to a Christ figure towards the top of the wall.<ref name="VIbbett"/> Working on the Memorial Chapel has been described as a six-year process of remembrance and exorcism for Spencer<ref name="Must See"/> and he explained the emphasis on the colossal resurrection scene, "I had buried so many people and saw so many bodies that I felt death could not be the end of everything."<ref name="Hauser"/>
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Between trips to Port Glasgow, Spencer was renting a room in Epsom, to be near Hilda and his children, but the landlady there disliked him and he wanted to move back to Cookham and work on the paintings in his old studio but he could not afford to rent it from Preece, so WAAC agreed further financial help for that purpose. In May 1942, Spencer delivered ''Template'', followed by twelve portraits of Clydesiders in October 1942.<ref name=IWMss1942>{{cite web |author=Imperial War Museum|url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050000841|title=War artists archive, Stanley Spencer 1942–1950 |access-date=27 January 2014|work=Imperial War Museum}}</ref>
By June 1943, Spencer was having problems with the composition of the next painting in the series, ''Bending the Keel plate'' and considered abandoning it. Although he was not entirely happy with the painting, WAAC purchased it in October 1943 for 150 guineas.<ref name=IWMkeel>{{cite web |author=Imperial War Museum|url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/25164 |title=Search the collection:Bending the Keel Plate |access-date=28 January 2014|work=Imperial War Museum}}</ref> About this time, the owner of the shipyard, [[Sir James Lithgow, 1st Baronet|James Lithgow]], complained to WAAC about Spencer's portrayal of his shipyard. WAAC duly commissioned [[Henry Rushbury]] to go to Port Glasgow and produce some rather more conventional views of shipbuilding for Lithgow.<ref name="Foss"/> Spencer made further visits to Glasgow and by June 1944 had completed ''Riggers'' and begun work on ''Plumbers''. After WAAC had purchased these two paintings, they did not have enough funds to authorise the completion of the entire original scheme of paintings. By the time WAAC was wound up, money had been made available for one further picture, ''The Furnaces'', which would become the central piece of the scheme.<ref name=IWMss1942/> After the war, when the WAAC collection of artworks was dispersed to different museums, the complete ''Shipbuilding on the Clyde'' series was offered to the [[National Maritime Museum]] who refused to accept the pictures and they were given to the [[Imperial War Museum]] instead.<ref name="Foss"/>
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The [[Riverside Museum]], Glasgow, now displays Spencer's shipyard paintings as a biannual rotation of works on loan from the Imperial War Museum.<ref>{{cite web| last = Glasgow Life.| title = What's on in Glasgow Life – Shipbuilding on the Clyde by Stanley Spencer.| publisher = Glasgow Life.| url = http://events.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/shipbuilding-on-the-clyde-by-stanley-spencer| access-date = 10 February 2014| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140220012314/http://events.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/shipbuilding-on-the-clyde-by-stanley-spencer| archive-date = 20 February 2014| df = dmy-all}}</ref>
In 1982, [[Robert Wyatt]] used sections from two of the
In 2014 on the site of the former Kingston Shipyard in Port Glasgow, which is now a retail park, a memorial in plate steel was erected to Spencer.<ref name=ITGroup>{{cite web |author=Inverclyde Tourist Group|url=https://www.inverclydetouristgroup.co.uk/gallery/port-glasgow---memorials/135/ |title=Port Glasgow - Memorials|access-date=5 February 2018|work=Inverclyde Tourist Group}}</ref>
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==Archives==
In 1973 the [[Tate]] acquired a large proportion of the Spencer family archives. These included Spencer's notebooks, sketchbooks and correspondence including the weekly letters he wrote to his sister Florence, while he was stationed in Salonika during the First World War. Spencer was a prolific writer of lists and the archive contains several that offer insights to specific paintings plus other material such as lists of rooms for the Church-House project, lists of plants in his own paintings and even a list of the jewellery he bought for Patricia Preece.<ref name="Glew">{{cite book|author=Adrian Glew|publisher=[[Tate Publishing Ltd]]|year=2001|title=Stanley Spencer Letters and Writings|isbn=1-85437-350-1}}</ref><ref name="Glewblog">{{cite web |author=Adrian Glew|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/tate-archive-40-1975-stanley-spencer-home-service |title=Tate Archive 40; 1975 Stanley Spencer Home Service |date=2 September 2010|access-date=3 March 2014|work=The Tate}}</ref> Other correspondence by Spencer, some of which also dates from the First World War, is held in the archives of the [[Stanley Spencer Gallery]] in Cookham.<ref name=SSGarchive>{{cite web |author=Stanley Spencer Gallery|url=http://www.kwantes.com/SSG%20website/archive-info.html |title=Our Archive|access-date=12 March 2014|work=[[Stanley Spencer Gallery]]}}</ref> Tate Britain holds the largest collection of Spencer works in the world, but the largest collection on display at any one time is at the Stanley Spencer Gallery.<ref name=SSGcol>{{cite web |author=Stanley Spencer Gallery|url=http://stanleyspencer.org.uk/otherworks/ |title= Spencer Paintings in Public Art Galleries & Museums|access-date=4 September 2018}}</ref>
==In popular culture==
* In her 2022 novel, ''Salonika Burning'', The Australian writer [[Gail Jones (writer)|Gail Jones]] fictionalises Stanley Spencer (as 'Stanley'), and his experiences in Macedonia, along with British painter [[Grace Pailthorpe]], Australian writer [[Miles Franklin]] and Australian adventurer [[Olive Kelso King|Olive King]].
==Exhibitions==
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[[Category:English male painters]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:
[[Category:People from Cookham]]
[[Category:Royal Academicians]]
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[[Category:World War I artists]]
[[Category:World War II artists]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Berkshire]]
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