Searching for Stanley

I love how one small thing can lead to another and before you know it you have disappeared down a whole rabbit warren of discovery. Which is how I discovered the work of the twentieth century artist Sir Stanley Spencer.

Back in January, I went with a friend to The Higgins Museum in Bedford to see an exhibition of the work of Edward Bawden. I was underwhelmed by the exhibition and nothing particularly grabbed my attention. But while we were there, we saw another temporary exhibition of modern British Art from the 20^th & 21^st centuries featuring some stunning portraiture. I was particularly stuck by a sensitive pencil drawing, a self portrait by Stanley Spencer from about 1940. When my friend remarked he was a strange man, I realised despite being aware of his name I knew nothing about him nor his art and so on returning home I started to do some research. I discovered he was an unusual man in many ways, passionate and eccentric, but he was also one of the most visionary and prolific British painters of the last century.

My copy of the portrait that first grabbed my attention

Almost as soon as I typed in his name into Google, I discovered the novel Stanley and Elsie by Nicola Upson and I was quickly distracted. Set shortly after the First World War, the book charts Stanley Spencer’s work on a memorial chapel which is to become his masterpiece. The story is told through the eyes of Elsie Munday who takes up a position as housemaid with Stanley, his wife Hilda Carline, also an artist, and their young daughter Shirin. All the people and events in the novel existed in real life but Uspon has cleverly woven their stories into a fascinating fictional account. It is a brilliant story of love, obsession, temptation and of course art, and as I read it, I found I was constantly stopping to look up more facts and discover more paintings, learning more about the strange and complicated life of the Spencers during their time at Burghclere and later back in Cookham. It’s a great book and one that I will read again, especially as it is on the list for our reading group later this year.

The first half of the novel charts Spencer’s progress painting the Sandham Memorial chapel at Burghclere from 1927 to 1932 in such detail that I longed to see it. And the latter half of the novel tells of Stanley’s return to Cookham, the place of his birth and his disastrous marriage to Patricia Preece. I was intrigued to experience the appeal of Cookham too

So early this summer I went with three friends on a bit of a Stanley Spencer pilgrimage which involved a round trip of about 200 miles.

One of the double panels on the wall of the Sandham Memorial Chapel

Our first stop was the chapel at Burghclere, from the outside an unassuming looking red brick building but inside housing seventeen stunning paintings that completely cover three walls. The chapel, now a National Trust property, was commissioned by Louis and Mary Behrend to house a series of paintings in memory of Mary’s brother who died of illness contracted in Macadonia following the first world war. Rather than paint the horrors of war, Spencer chose to paint scenes inspired by the everyday activities of his own experience as a medical orderly at the Beaufort hospital in Bristol as well as those of when he was a soldier on the Salonika front. With titles such as ‘Scrubbing the Floor’, “Bedmaking”, and “Filling Tea Urns” you get a sense of the everyday life of the soldiers despite the horrendous backdrop of WWII. Inspired by Giotto’s Scrovengi Chapel in Padua, the connection between the two is apparent. I was struck by both the intimacy as well as the intense spirituality of the chapel. I think the term awesome is often brandished with little understanding of its real meaning, but I was awestruck by the detail yet also the magnificence of the work. We lingered over the paintings, listening to the stories behind each one told by the very well-informed NT volunteer, knowing we all wished to return to these extraordinary paintings one day.

Back on the M4 motorway we headed in the direction of London to find the Thameside village of Cookham near Maidenhead. Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham in 1891, the eighth surviving child of nine. It was a place to which he remained deeply connected until he died. Not only born there, but it was also his home for most of his life and was the setting and inspiration for many of his paintings. He was even nicknamed ‘Cookham’ when he studied at the Slade, because he preferred to take the train home each evening for his tea rather than stay in London. Many of his paintings depict biblical scenes occurring as if they happened in Cookham, featuring local people.

“When I lived in Cookham I was disturbed by a feeling of everything being meaningless. But quite suddenly I became aware that everything was full of special meaning and this made everything holy. I observed this sacred quality in most unexpected quarters”

Stanley Spencer

Spencer’s family home was Fernlea, a house on the high street built by his grandfather. He was home educated by his two older sisters and both he and his younger brother Gilbert took drawing lessons from a local artist.  He studied art at the Slade from 1908 until 1912, where he was already gaining recognition as a talented artist. During the war he enlisted to serve with the Medical Corps and spent time as an orderly in Bristol before being transferred overseas to Macedonia with the ambulance unit. He suffered persistent bouts of Malaria and was eventually invalided out of the army, to return to Cookham where he lived until 1920.

Stanley Spencer’s portrait of Nicola Munday “A Country Girl” 1929

He then moved around, painting prolifically, and gaining recognition, until in 1925 he married his first wife Hilda Carline, another former Slade student. In 1927 he started work on the Sandham chapel which is where Nicola Upson’s novel takes up his story. During this time Spencer longed to return to Cookham, although Hilda by now with two small daughters, wanted to move to Hampstead to be near her family. They did eventually move back to Cookham to a house called Lindworth but it was a troubled and turbulent time in his life. He had met and become infatuated with the artist Patricia Preece, who lived in Cookham with her lesbian lover Dorothy Hepworth. Although they were both artists, Patricia the more glamorous and outgoing of the pair would often sign the work of Dorothy, arguably the more talented, and pass it off as her own work. A whole other story of its own!

Portrait of Patricia Preece, 1933

Spencer became obsessed with Preece, often painting her but Hilda became increasingly dissatisfied and moved away to Hamstead, sending their elder daughter away to live with friends. Despite Spencer’s attempts at reconciliation, Hilda started divorce proceedings and a week after the decree absolute was granted Spencer and Preece were married. Foolishly Spencer had handed over his financial affairs and the deeds to his house to Preece, although she continued to live with Dorothy and their marriage was never consummated.

Preece refused to grant Spencer a divorce and remained married to him until his death, even becoming Lady Spencer when he received his knighthood. By 1938 he was forced to leave Cookham as she was renting out Lindworth, effectively evicting him from his home. The following years were an increasingly turbulent time with personal, professional, and financial difficulties. He was the subject of a police prosecution for obscenity, having made several controversial and explicit paintings and drawings. Despite futile attempts at reconciliation, he remained devoted to Hilda until her death.

He eventually returned to Cookham and was well known in the village as a small man with shaggy white hair, often wearing his pyjamas under his suit to keep warm. He was a familiar sight in the streets pushing his easel around in a battered black pram. He died of cancer in 1959 yet remained a prolific painter until the end of his life.

Stanley pushing his pram around the streets of Cookham

It might have been a quiet Thameside village back in Spencer’s day, however we found it noisy and overwhelming with traffic. That said, we had a lovely lunch in a café on the High Street and wondered if this might have been the spot where he would go to meet Preece. We took photos of the blue plaque on the wall of Fernlea, discovered a fabulous little bookshop where of course we all made purchases, we got thrown out of a private country club whilst looking for somewhere to have a cuppa, had a leisurely stroll along the Thames where we admired the boats and huge waterside homes but best of all was visiting the small Stanley Spencer gallery situated in the former Wesleyan chapel in the heart of the village. On permanent display is his final unfinished painting “Christ Teaching at Cookham Regatta” a large, stunning figurative work. Yet it is his portraits to which I return time and time again.

As with all good portraits they are sensitive studies that seem to get to the heart of their subject, maybe more importantly they each tell a story. So, I probably don’t need to tell you how overwhelmed I was when a visitor to Open Studios this year, a stranger to me, commented that my portraits had a feel of Stanley Spencer about them. I’m not kidding myself that there is even a miniscule grain of truth in her observation, but it made my day… well, my week and possibly year if I am honest. And it was just the encouragement an aspiring portrait artist needs to hear.

My portrait “Marian” , acrylic on canvas 2023

I’ll be back with more about portraits next week but if you have enjoyed this please do share it with a friend!