Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Stanley Spencer

 Cookham, 1914

 Cookham: Mending Cowls, 1915

Cookham: Terry's Lane, 1922

 The Red House, Wangford, 1926


Clipped Yews, 1935


Patricia at Cockmarsh Hill, 1935


Cookham: The Jubilee Tree, 1936


The Boatbuilder's Yard, 1936


Self Portrait, 1936


Landscape with Magnolia, 1938

 Cookham Dene: Landscape, 1939


Cookham Dene: Rock Garden, 1942


Daphne Spencer, 1951


Portrait of Miss Ashwanden, 1958

Another of the side-paths branching off from John Singer Sargent last week ended up leading me to Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) who lived and painted for most of his life in the Berkshire village of Cookham. The final painting of his career appears immediately above. Miss Ashwanden was the 17-year-old daughter of neighbors. At the time this picture was painted both the subject and the artist knew themselves to be dying of incurable diseases – a situation that reads almost too much like an Alan Bennett play to be believed. Yet the picture breathes, independent of its awful ironies. The tender pink of the pullover.