Old Couple - 1939

Drawing, pencil, 16in x 11in

 

Volume 1 of the Astor Collection of Drawings
The drawing was used for the left half of Spencer's picture 'Village Life, Gloucestershire', 1940, which he intended for his 'Church House' and painted in Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire, during his sojourn there with George and Daphne Charlton. Daphne was his mistress for a time. He wrote of the drawing: '…an old couple witnessing the coming of God in the sky while they & a grand child were in their garden taking in the clothes.' The painting conforms to his 'Last Day' scheme in which places significant for him were to be transmuted into a type of 'Heaven on earth'.

Lent by a private collector