Saturday, November 8, 2025

Charles Spencelayh

Charles Spencelayh
My Pet
1890
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent


Charles Spencelayh
Sunset
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Dog's Head
1897
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
The White Rat
1899
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

Charles Spencelayh
Vernon Spencelayh, the artist's son
1917
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Polly Not Forgotten
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Alderman Price, Mayor of Rochester
1922
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Mrs. Price,
Wife of Alderman Price, Mayor of Rochester

1922
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
Sure to Catch
1932
oil on canvas
Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Shropshire

Charles Spencelayh
No Watermark
1933
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Charles Spencelayh
Dig for Victory
1941
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museums, West Midlands

Charles Spencelayh
Self Portrait at age 79
1944
oil on canvas
Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent

Charles Spencelayh
His Daily Ration
1946
oil on canvas
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, East Midlands

"I shan't be in London till July.  I shall certainly study the Spencelayhs.  Last year it seemed to me his invention was flagging a little though his great talents were unimpaired."  – from a letter dated 2 June 1946

"The Spencelayhs.  Ed and I went to examine them.  All are sold or in our after luncheon mood we would have celebrated the great inflation by buying you one.  All three exquisite.  One just junk called Grandfather's Treasures.  The other two of the old man who features so often in his later work, with the familiar red bandana handkerchief.  One, The Passing of Time, with a photograph album, grandfather clock in background, apples ripening on top of door-case.  The masterpiece of nomenclature and symbolism is the old man seated with hands folded on calf bound Bible, look of earnest faith in his eyes, an oleograph of Christ behind his head, an empty bird cage.  The title, Not Alone.  I would dearly have liked to have that."  – from a letter of mid-June 1946

Charles Spencelayh
A Cure for Everything
ca. 1947
oil on canvas
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

"Three Spencelayhs at the Academy – up to standard but not remarkable.  The best, The Empty Chair – not Dickens's.  The Bread Ration, an elderly artisan looking quizzically at his loaf, 'Give us this day our daily bread' on the chimney piece.  Rather a poor The Telegram.  Impossible to tell whether it is good or bad news – one assumes bad on general grounds, but the face is downcast and the line of moustache hides the line of the mouth.  It could hardly be a son killed in the war.  It might be a football-pool success.  He has changed his address from Manchester and now lives in a village in Northamptonshire – St Mildred, Bozeat, Wellingborough."  – from a letter dated 10 May 1947

Charles Spencelayh
Key to Eternity
1950
oil on canvas
Swanspool House, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

Charles Spencelayh
Fingerprints
1953
oil on canvas
Russell Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth, Dorset

"Three Spencelayhs in the Academy.  Compositions as beautiful as always and many familiar details – the red and white spotted handkerchief, the guinea, the fiddle but his old eyes are dim and his old fingers numb and there is not the fine finish of 25 years ago.  None sold either."  – from a letter dated 2 May 1954 

Charles Spencelayh
The Scent
before 1958
oil on canvas
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire

[from newspaper clipping enclosed in a letter] – "Nearby hangs a picture by a 91-year-old painter, Charles Spencelayh, who is going blind.  The name of his work: My First Painting and My Last.  It shows the interior of a room with his first painting on an easel.  A guttering candle stands on a table."  – 2 May 1957  

– texts from letters of Evelyn Waugh to Diana Cooper (mutual fans of Spencelayh), as published in Mr. Wu & Mrs. Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh & Diana Cooper, edited by Artemis Cooper (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991)