Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)

The Resurrection with the Raising of Jairus’s Daughter

Spencer had used his beloved Cookham as the setting for religious paintings since his time as a Slade student. The use of familiar locations as the backdrop for miraculous events is also seen in the series of Resurrection paintings he developed while working as a war artist at Port Glasgow during the Second World War.

Ideas for the side panels of this joyful triptych were drawn during a visit to Gloucestershire in 1940. On the left the dead are emerging from paving stones that now cover the graves of a nearby church. On the right the living embrace the returning dead, while in the centre the New Testament story of Christ raising Jairus's daughter plays out in an ordinary terraced house.

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