Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)

Patricia Preece

Spencer is a unique figure in British art, a visionary who found the miraculous side by side with the mundane in the village where he spent most of his life, a place he so strongly identified with that his nickname at the Slade was Cookham.

Spencer's relationship with Preece began in 1932 and quickly became an obsession. Preece encouraged him as she and her partner Dorothy Hepworth needed Spencer's money. She began modelling for him in 1933, this painting being the first in a series of increasingly severe and unflinching portraits. In 1937 Spencer divorced his first wife and married Preece but they never lived together and Spencer found himself estranged from both women.

← Back to the Collection