Sir Stanley Spencer RA by Andrew Stewart Jamieson

One of the most original British artists who’s unique vision and deeply held religious beliefs helped immortalise his native village of Cookham in Berkshire the source of inspiration for much of his finest work.

Spencer was born in 1891 in the village of Cookham and after a rudimentary education he attended Maidenhead Technical Institute where he learnt to draw in the academic fashion from plaster casts. From here in 1908 he went on to the Slade School in London. Here Professor Henry Tonks who was an ex surgeon with an eye for meticulous detail taught him drawing. In 1912 Spencer left the school as a distinguished student having won two art prizes.

At the outbreak of war in 1914 he volunteered for military service in the Army. An experience he was later to draw on to produce some of his finest paintings.

During World War II he was appointed an official war artist and produced a series of striking paintings showing workers in the Glasgow shipyards. He married Hilda Carline a fellow student at the Slade but the marriage was doomed when he developed a sexual infatuation with Patricia Preese, whom he disastrously married when Hilda divorced him in 1937. Spencer spent the rest of his life living alone hoping that Hilda would return to him. She never did and when she died he painted a series of touching paintings in her memory.

He was elected twice to the Royal Academy in London, having resigned once when two of his paintings were refused and in 1959 the year of his death he was knighted.

The last fifteen years of his life were spent back in Cookham where he painted some of his finest work and he became a familiar and somewhat eccentric sight around the village wheeling a child’s pram holding all his art equipment. The landscapes he painted in an around Cookham, to generate income are still very fresh and expertly observed.

Of the visionary works Spencer produced some merit particular attention.
The Murals he painted for the Burghclere Chapel between 1927 and 1932 in which we see snapshots of his life in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Beautifully painted with the artist’s sense of religious beliefs shining through in the works.

The Resurrection Cookham, a unique and truly original take on the traditional imagery usually associated with the theme. Spencer shows the resurrected villagers awakening in their village churchyard but there is no hellfire and damnation here, just a joyous sense of awakening in the place they want to be.

Christ Preaching at the Cookham Regatta, a huge painting unfinished at the artists death, where Christ is depicted in a barge preaching to assembled masses attending the boating regatta held annually on the river Thames. In it we see echoes of Giotto and an attention to detail almost Pre Raphaelite in its observation.

When asked about these religious paintings Spencer stated that, ‘My feeling for things holy was very strong at the time’, and he also believed that, ‘where I live has a rich religious significance’.

Sir Stanley Spencer died in 1959.

‘My longings become pictures’
Sir Stanley Spencer