News

Stanley Spencer Voted in TOP Ten of British Artists December 2011

Stanley Spencer has just been voted in top ten of British artists (click here for Independent article), the public can still catch the latest exhibition Spencer’s War The Art of Shipbuilding on the Clyde which closes on January 15th. This exhibition has some of his finest work.

The War Artists at the Spencer Gallery - 9 November 2011

‘Ulrike Smalley – senior curator at the Imperial War Museum gave a fascinating talk about the WAAC – the War Artists Advisory Committee. Choosing the title ‘War Against Fascism’ we heard about the work of the committee, chaired by Sir Kenneth Clark, and their role in commissioning art for propaganda to help the war effort. The current exhibition in the Gallery (to Jan 15th2011) Stanley Spencer’s ‘Shipbuilding on the Clyde’ series was one of their commissions. Ulrike then shared with us some of her favourite paintings from the collection held by the IWM including works by Muirhead Bone, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Eric Ravilous. The Gallery was full and the audience very appreciative.

Pictured are Ulrike and Gallery Trustee Andy De Mille

Unveling of Blue Plaque at Leonard Stanley - 15th October 2011

There was an exciting event in the village of Leonard Stanley near Stroud on 15th October 2011, where Stanley Spencer lived and worked during the early part of the war. A blue plaque was fixed to the wall of the inn in which he stayed, and was unveiled on Apple Day in the village when one of the Gallery's Trustees, Carolyn Leder, performed the unveiling ceremony at 3pm.

 

Carolyin can be seen sharing a soapbox with ‘Stanley Spencer’ after the unveiling.

 

In the final photograph visitors can be seen posing as the characters in Spencer’s picture, ‘Village Life, Gloucestershire’, 1940. In the final photo, ‘Stanley Spencer’ and I share a soapbox after the unveiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN EVENING AT HEDSOR - 6 August 2011

An Evening at Hedsor has become an event, which has become an agreeable regular feature. There was a talkby Ann Danks and Chrissy Rosenthal and a reception at Hedsor church where people can enjoy the view of that corner of the Thames Valley and see the church in which Stanley's father regularly played the organ.

 

 

 

(First photo Ann Danks, Maura Carr, Chrissy Rosenthal)

(Second photo Chrissy Rosenthal, Maura Carr, Ann Danks)

 

Brenda Emmanuel and Carolyn Leder

Your Loving Friend Stanley - 11 July 2011

‘Your Loving Friend, Stanley’
The Great War correspondence between Stanley Spencer and Desmond Chute

Edited and with essays by PAUL GOUGH

Artist, broadcaster and writer Paul Gough made a welcome return to the Gallery on the evening of 11th July. In a fascinating double bill Paul first outlined the background to his latest book (details below) before talking about the current exhibition 'Spencer's War; The Art of Shipbuilding on the Clyde' from an artistic point of view - discussing how Stanley Spencer used certain approaches in design, colour, composition and pattern in these paintings many of which he had practised at Burghclere and throughout the thirties. As always it was a hugely entertaining and informative evening. Photograph shows Paul Gough signing a book for Lesley Aston in the presence of David Pople, son of the late Ken Pople who wrote an acclaimed biography of Spencer.

The Great War correspondence written by the young artist Stanley Spencer to his friend Desmond Chute has been published by Sansom & Company in conjunction with the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham.. These poignant, often illustrated letters detailing Spencer’s thoughts and experiences whilst training for and serving in Macedonia during the First World War are preserved in the archives of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, and have now been collected together in a book; Your Loving Friend, Stanley, edited by Paul Gough. Introductory essays give the background to the correspondence, discuss its importance to Spencer and provide new information about the extraordinary young man, Desmond Chute, that the artist chose to confide in.

When serving as an orderly in the Beaufort Military Hospital, Bristol during the First World War, the young Stanley Spencer met Desmond Chute, a 20-year old aesthete and scion of a noted Bristol theatre family. A close friendship ensued, as the 31 letters in this collection attest. Far more sophisticated and better educated, Chute introduced the older man (Spencer was 24 when they met) to classical literature and great music and, perhaps most crucially, to the Confessions of St Augustine. Chute’s influence on Spencer’s intellectual development cannot be exaggerated.

Spencer’s letters, written at first when awaiting posting overseas, are interspersed with small drawings which capture the artist’s unique view of the military training he struggled to become accustomed to. Others from the battlefields of Macedonia give glimpses of his tribulations in a theatre of war and the strength he found through Chute’s friendship and the books he was able to send him. At one point the young artist conjured up his beloved home village out of his imagination and sent his friend an eight page long epistle full of extraordinarily well-wrought reminiscences of Cookham, colourfully populated with places and characters. A few concluding letters written once back in the family home Fernlea, and Hampstead in the 1920s, chronicle how the two young men grew apart as their lives moved on.

All the letters are transcribed for the modern reader; some are also reproduced facsimile with Spencer’s illustrations. Archive photographs provide a visual context.

Dr Paul Gough is the Professor of Fine Arts and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West of England, Bristol. A painter, broadcaster and writer he has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad.

ISBN 978-1-906593-76-6
244 x 172mm
128pp
Softback
£12.95

Publication: June 2011

This book is available from the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham and a proportion of the royalties will be given to Gallery funds.

 

'Stanley' by Pam Gems - Part of the Cookham Festival - 16 and 17 May 2011

From toe caps to dockets the attention to detail in the Shipbuilding on the Clyde paintings featured in the current exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery has you instantly spellbound. And so it was this week with the Newbury Dramatic Society’s adaption of Pam Gems play ‘Stanley’.From the patterned tank top and bottle top glasses of the artist himself to Dorothy’s box camera and Patricia’s vampish red shoes this was a thoughtfully staged and sensitively crafted production that honoured the smallest detail, just as Stanley did in his paintings.

Described by one critic as ‘high-culture soap opera’ the action revolves around Spencer’s attachment to two women, his first wife Hilda and the scheming Miss Preece.

But it is left to a third, Dorothy Hepworth, to sum up the essence of Stanley as an artist: “He paints people trapped, as it were, in their own flesh, pinned down on this earth, and yet they seek to soar and he makes that seem very possible.” These words had a heightened potency and dramatic effect sitting as we were in the shadows of five great works of art, monuments to the artist’s unique talent.Adapted and directed by Ann Davidson I was intrigued to find out whether she and the cast had come to love or loathe the man who we in Cookham think of as ‘our Stan’, a man who wanted two wives and ended up with none. Ann replied “There is no doubt he led a complicated life but ultimately he was a genius and it was the essence of that we wanted to capture.” And so it was left to the artist himself to utter the two final words in the play. “Beautifully done” he said and indeed it was.

 

‘Stanley’ is one of the best known works by leading playwright Pam Gems who died on 13th May 2011 aged 85.
 Claire Phillpot

BBC FILMING - 16 May 2011

 

 

The BBC were filming in the Gallery for the story on Sothebys sale today16 May 2011. This was be on BBC 1 London News tomorrow night 17 May 2011.

They filmed in the Gallery and around Cookham and Brenda Emmanus, Arts and Entertainment Correspondent interviewed Carolyn Leder Trustee of the Gallery

 

 

Brenda Emmanuel and Carolyn Leder

SPENCER AND THE SHIPBUILDERS - 13 May 2011

 

The Stanley Spencer Gallery was packed out last night (Friday) for a fascinating talk about political and social changes during the Second World War, the period when Stanley Spencer was painting the ‘Shipbuilders on the Clyde’ series, currently on show in the Gallery.

It was given by Dr Paul Rennie, Head of Context at Central St Martins school of art in London, and he used a superb selection of posters and art works to show how they were used for propaganda and social awareness. Spencer’s ‘Burners’ had been turned into a poster to go in canteens and halls to encourage the ‘common’ man and woman to work hard for the War Effort.

We learnt not only about the use of such art, but about the processes involved in the printing and the damage done to the industry in the wartime period and why so few of these posters have survived. We will all be on the lookout now for rare posters which could make us a fortune!

Dr Paul Rennie - 13 May 2011

 

 

 

 

Ed Vaizey MP Minister for Communication, Culture and the Creative Industries officially opened the new exhibition Spencer’s War: The Art of Shipbuilding on the Clyde on Saturday April 9th. Speaking at the launch to an audience of Gallery Friends and invited guests he said “Stanley Spencer has always been one of my favourite artists and I am delighted to be here to see the Gallery and to open this stunning exhibition featuring the ship building paintings loaned by the Imperial War Museum. I am encouraging the national galleries to loan more of their works to regional exhibitions like this.” The Rt Hon Theresa May also attended the opening and said the Gallery’s Summer exhibition is always a highlight of the year for her. She noted that the paintings are an important record of shipbuilding and exude the toil, heat and effort of the shipbuilders. Theresa also congratulated the Gallery’s volunteers who have run the Gallery for nearly fifty years, saying that “it is The Big Society before it its time! “

The exhibition features Spencer’s Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, one of the most remarkable artistic records of the Second World War. The paintings are on loan from the Worthing Art Gallery (The Furnace Man, with its preparatory portrait drawing), and the Imperial War Museum (5 long panels: Riveters, Bending the Keel Plate, Riggers, Plumbers & Furnaces), plus 34 drawings for the series. Spencer accepted an official commission from the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) to go to Port Glasgow, Scotland, to depict work in a shipyard. The vessels under construction were merchant ships for importing food and raw materials, many of which were lost on Atlantic convoys.

The shipyard caught Spencer’s imagination and he produced a series of canvases depicting the major trades involved in ship construction in considerable detail. This type of heavy industry no longer exists on Clydeside. As in his murals in the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, which commemorate the 1st World War, he concentrates on everyday activity rather than grand events. The distinctive long, narrow horizontal format of the pictures forces the figures to adopt complex and unusual poses, reflecting the cramped conditions under which they worked. The inventive compositions are suffused with heat, noise and the dramatic glare of light on metal. Spencer was fascinated by the abstract shapes of tools and metal, which he uses to form characteristic repetitive patterns. He drew continuously, sometimes on rolls of toilet paper, and from these sketches worked up his complex and eminently successful compositions, with which the WAAC was delighted. The pictures were widely exhibited to boost national morale. Recently cleaned, they will form a spectacular exhibition in the Stanley Spencer Gallery.

Spencer achieved a rare feat by producing some of the most original masterpieces by any artist in response to the two great conflicts of the twentieth century. He was an Official War Artist in both World Wars, producing Travoys in 1919 and Shipbuilding on the Clyde, 1940-6. His great cycle of wall paintings in the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere (now National Trust) commemorate his experiences in the RAMC and infantry during the First World War.

Click here to see some photos

Click here for more photos

 

A Visit from Rotterdam Museum - 1 April 2011

Alied Ottevanger, the Curator from the Kunsthal Museum, Rotterdam visited Cookham today 1 April 2011. Alied will be giving a talk this evening at the Friends of Stanley Spencer AGM at Moor Hall. Alied met with Michael Johnson who is Chairman of the Friends.

There will be an extensive Stanley Spencer exhibition which is being organised in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam from 17 September 2011. Alied will be able to give a view of Stanley from the sort of European perspective which will be new to those in Cookham who tend to be very close to his origins. The Friends of the Gallery will be making a visit there in October.

 

Click here to see some more photos

 

 

 

Setting up the Summer Exhibition 2011 - 28 March 2011

It was all hands on deck on Monday 28 March at the Stanley Spencer Gallery when the Winter Exhibition was taken down and delivery of the paintings for the Summer Exhibition were being delivered. It was a tight squeeze getting some of the exhibits through the door.

The Summer Exhibition is entitled Spencer's War, the Art of Ship Building on the Clyde and the majority of the works have been lent by the Imperial War Museum. In addition to the paintings arriving from the Imperial War Museum, others were being taken away as some of the Gallery’s works, including Christ preaching at Cookham Regatta, are being loaned to Rotterdam Museum who are mounting the largest Spencer exhibition ever in Europe. Alied Ottevanger from the Rotterdam Museum is visiting Cookham this week and will give a talk at the Friends of Stanley Spencer AGM on Friday night at Moor Hall.

The Summer Exhibition actually opens on Friday 1st April, so there will be some hard work undertaken to ensure it is all ready for visitors.

 

Click here to see some more photos

 

 

 

 

Stanley Spencer Gallery Wins Design Award - 20 January 2011

 

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead's Design Awards Scheme which was started in 1993 and aims to identify and celebrate the best of recent development in the Royal Borough. The 2010 Design Award Scheme was open for any new scheme completed between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2009.

The 2010 Awards Ceremony took place on Thursday 20 January 2011, held in Maidenhead Town Hall's Desborough Suite. The winners in the five categories received plaques from Cllr Alison Knight, Cabinet Member for Planning and Development. The Stanley Spencer Gallery won category B - Renovations or Extensions.

The Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham won for re-planning of the interior to provide new gallery space, with external alterations to relocate a listed telephone kiosk and create an accessible new glazed entrance and external surfacing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luke Haines Visits Stanley Spencer Gallery -12 November 2010

Singer/songwriter Luke Haines today visited the Stanley Spencer Gallery to film a clip for his forthcoming documentary film "Art will save the world". Luke who was born in 1967 has made records with the Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.

Luke said "I have been visiting the Stanley Spencer Gallery for more than eleven years and some of my songs have been inspired by Stanley Spencer, I love his work. A track - English Southern Man - from my latest album 21st Century Man mentions Spencer in the lyrics."

The film is being made by Happy Ending production company, Dublin and Luke was accompanied by Director Niall McCann.
Photo caption

(Left to right :Luke Haines, Niall McCann, Ann Danks Archivist Stanley Spencer Gallery)

 

 

 

Professor Keith Bell Visits the Gallery - October 2010

Professor Keith Bell, Head of Art History, University of Saskatchewan visited the Gallery in October to do research for his catalogue for the forthcoming Spencer Exhibition at Compton Verney. Keith Bell's huge work - Spencer's Catalogue Raisonne, is on sale in the Gallery. He has promised to give a lecture in the Gallery in 2011.

 

Photo is of the Gallery's Archivist Ann Danks and Professor Keith Bell

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spencer at Hedsor - July 31st 2010

 

 

'The Sacred and the (not very) Profane' was the title of this years evening at St Nicholas Church in Hedsor. Once again we were so lucky with the weather and were able to enjoy the magnificent view across the Thames to Winter Hill and Cockmarsh - a view Spencer was very familiar with. Ann Danks talked about his connections with the church - his 'Pa' was the organist and Stanley and his brother Gilbert would often walk across from Cookham to join him. She then went on to explain how Spencer's religious feelings and his everyday life combined in his work. After the break - and a very enjoyable glass of wine in the evening sunshine - Chrissy Rosenthal looked at the 'not very' profane as she examined his time during World War 2 which he spent in the Cotswolds with his then lover Daphne Charlton. These evenings are a delight for all who attend and thanks go to St Nicholas Church and Maura Carr for organising the evening.

 

The Summer Exhibition 2010

The Summer Exhibition 'Stanley and the first Mrs Spencer' was formally opened on Saturday 10th April 2010 by Shirin and Unity Spencer. They spoke of their childhood with their mother Hilda - the first Mrs Spencer. Several other members of the family were also present - inlcuding Spencer's grandson John. (picture) Local MP Theresa May. A great Spencer enthusiast - also took time out of campainging for the General election.

The photo on the left taken at the official opening sows from left to right, Unity Spencer, Stuart Conlin Chairman of the Trustees of Stanley Spencer Gallery, Shirin Spencer, John Spencer, Unity’s son, and Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

Journey to Burghclere

On Thursday 25th February 2010 Paul Gough came to the Spencer Gallery to talk about his book ‘Journey to Burghclere’ which looks at Spencer’s time as an official war artist in World War I and his time in Salonika. Paul is a broadcaster, painter and writer,and has exhibited in the UK and abroad.. As a broadcaster he has presented art programmes on ITV and BBC2, and spoken frequently on BBC Radio 4. He has also worked as a presenter and associate producer on several documentaries.

Paul Gough's new book 'A Terrible Beauty': War, Art and Imagination 1914-1918 is about the work of Britain’s war artists, a subject which has been well documented, but his penetrating survey throws new light on their motivations, responses to the conflict and their unique, and widely varying, interpretations of the effects on the combatants. Profusely illustrated, with many familiar but also less familiar images. It gives new insights into the work of the major and lesser-known artists of the First World War, including David Bomberg, Muirhead Bone, Sidney Jones, Henry Lamb, Adrian Hill, Paul Maze, John Nash, Paul Nash, Nevinson, Orpen, William Roberts, William Rothenstein, Stanley Spencer, Harold Williamson and Wyndham Lewis (978-1-906593-00-1 SOFTBACK 336pp £29.99 available at Gallery).

BBC The One Show Filmed with Giles Brandreth

Giles Brandreth visited the Spencer Gallery on 23 February 2010 to film a story on Stanley Spencer for The One Show (to be broadcast on March 1st 2010). He interviewed author and art historian Patrick Wright, who co-curated the Spencer Exhibition at the Tate Gallery and Joan George who last year published a book on Spencer. They also filmed at Holy Trinity Church, the War Memorial and Fernlea in the High Street, where Spencer was born.

 

 

 

 

David Haycock Talks About his New Book

David Haycock talked at the Spencer Gallery about his new book, "Crisis of Brilliance" in October 2009 and then December. He is pictured here signing his book. Crisis of Brilliance tells the story of Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson and Stanley Spencer, who were five of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. From diverse backgrounds they met at the Slade School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in London between 1908 and 1910, in what their teacher, Henry Tonks, later described as the School’s ‘last crisis of brilliance.It’s not biography in the traditional sense at all but a history of art, artists and their times and interestingly this is the first time that there has ever been a study of these artists as a group.

David Boyd Haycock grew up in West Africa, East Anglia and North Yorkshire; he read Modern History at St John’s College, Oxford, and Art History at the University of Sussex, before studying for a PhD at Birkbeck College, London. He worked in publishing, and as an archaeologist, before becoming an academic historian and then a museum curator. His two areas of particular interest are the intellectual history (broadly speaking) of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and the history of art in early to mid twentieth-century Britain.

Fifty Years on Some Memories of Stanley Spencer

An anthology compiled, edited and updated by Joan George

Stanley Spencer Remembered is not only an anthology of people's memories of the artist it also provides a glimpse into mid-twentieth century social history and its effects on Cookham, Stanley’s home and the inspiration for much of his work. Joan George recalls how, following the artist's death in 1959, determined villagers fought for a Memorial to him in Cookham- a village in heaven – as he described it.

From modest beginnings selling postcards in the front room of Spencer's birthplace, readers are shown how the campaign escalated up the social ladder to Lord Astor, whose support the village gained for the conversion of a disused village hall into a permanent memorial gallery of the artist's works.

A great variety of some twenty people’s memories is enhanced by the insights of Spencer's two daughters and the compiler's own experience of her stormy interviews with the artist before finally gaining his trust and later friendship.

Ending with an open "letter to Stanley", the reader is led through a series of Spencer-orientated events between 1959 and 2009. The idea originated with Stanley's unusual compulsion to write frequently to his beloved first wife, Hilda, long after she had died.

Stanley Spencer Remembered aims to supplement more learned works by revealing the humorous, adaptable and sociable side of the artist, who on his own admission, had many "selves". The book includes photographs of the artist at work and in groups with family and friends. It shows how Spencer, with so many unfulfilled dreams, finally came to terms with reality in his own native village – Cookham

Taderon Press, London, 2009 92pp £6.00.

This book is available from the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham

This is the second book written by Joan George this year, Joan is 87.

Summer Has Officially Arrived in Cookham

 

 

Summer has officially arrived in Cookham! The Summer exhibition, ‘ Stanley Spencer and the River Thames’  was opened on Saturday 16 May by Dr Stephen Deuchar, Director Tate Britain. Calling Spencer ‘One of the most important figures in British art’ he said it was high time the Tate revisited his work and that he would be considering staging a major exhibition in the future. Asked recently to name his top ten paintings in the world he chose Swan Upping as one of them – the painting currently hangs in the gallery as one of four paintings on loan from the Tate. Calling the Gallery a ‘small but perfect’ shrine to Spencer’s works he said Spencer was important not only to Cookham but to England and the wider world, that we should cherish his ability to see miracles all around. 

 

Dr Deuchar brought his young daughter Faith with him to Cookham, and they spent the morning walking round the village looking at the places which inspired the artist. Growing up in a small village herself Dr Deucher hoped that she too would understand that sense of place that was so important to

Spencer. 

 

Among the other guests were Lord Astor, whose father was Spencer’s patron, Unity Spencer his younger daughter, Theresa May MP and the Mayor of Maidenhead Councillor Dorothy Kemp.

 

Also present were Friends of the Gallery and owners of many of the paintings on loan to the gallery collection. Stuart Conlin, chair of the trustees welcomed everyone and underlined how successful the refurbishment of the gallery had been, and that more visitors than ever were now coming in to the gallery. The Mayor and our local MP were then presented with baskets of flowers made by Molly Hurley, one of the custodians.

 

A Spencer Collage for the Cookham Festival

 

For the Cookham Festival the Maidenhead Painting Club which meets on Thursday evenings at Holy Trinity School in School Lane Cookham produced a fantastic collage.

The subject was this fabulous version of Stanley Spencer's famous painting Swan Upping. It was created by Louise Wood and the Maidenhead Painting Club. A real work of art. which was done mainly by under 5s .

The collage was displayed on Cookham Moor on the final day of the Cookham Festival, May Day, 4 May 2009; where bands were playing, arts and crafts were being performed and displayed and people were there for a fun day out.

A Family of Artists

To mark the 50th anniversary of Spencer’s death the Gallery welcomed members of the Spencer family and their in-laws the Carlines on Thursday 30th April 2009. As part of the Cookham Festival a packed gallery heard about the work of Stanley’s wife Hilda Carline, and that of her artistic family. Called ‘A Family of Artists’ visitors were enthralled to hear about the work of Hilda’s father, mother and two brothers. They were all part of the group of friends who supported and inspired Spencer. Taking part were Unity and Shirin Spencer, daughters of Stanley Spencer and Hilda Carline and Francis and Hermione Carline, children of Hilda’s brother Richard, who were accompanied by Flora Carline, Richards grandaughter. Many of the images shown were of works normally kept in private collections.

Picture caption: Francis Carline (left)and Unity Spencer (centre) talking to the audience about their family. Chrissy Rosenthal (right) took the chair

Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta

Last June the Stanley Spencer Gallery were contacted by Kim Allen, a teacher at Comberton Village College in Cambridgeshire. Kim said that she was currently embarking on a large (8’ x 20’) mural project based on Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta. As this work was never completed, she felt it would be inspiring to use it as a starting point for a mural. In her experience, she felt that Stanley Spencer is under-used in schools because of the complexity of his compositions and so there was a unique opportunity to do something about it, working with 19 students for a week off timetable.

There were some changes after the original plans though, In the end they decided to do four panels of 6’ x 4’ so the complete mural is now 6’ x 16’, and several of the students who were going to be involved were away that week in the end, so only 14 took part.

Comberton Village College have their completed version of Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta. Kim managed to get enough information together to produce the Stanley Spencer mural, which is now displayed outside the sports hall at Comberton Village College. Kim said "We had a fantastic time painting it, (14 students aged 12-13, working with Laura Chaplin, Carol Holburn and Kimberley Allen). It has had a lot of extremely positive feedback, from both staff and students.

The young people decided to write their initials on the hockey sticks, so the artists are acknowledged on the painting itself.

Happy Birthday Stanleyl

A wonderful celebration of Stanley Spencer's birthday took place on Sunday 29th June 2008 in the grounds of Holy Trinity church.

Cookham's world famous artist has always been popular with people coming from all over the country to see the Church and village that features in so many of his paintings.

The Stanley Spencer Gallery organised Sunday's open day, and people came to admire the flowers on his memorial, watch films of him at work in the Church, listen to Cookham's outstanding jazz band - the Fabulous Shirtlifters - see the bells that Stanley rang; see again the Hey Big Spencer and enjoy guided walks to many of his favourite places featured in his paintings.

Spencer Impresses Nathaniel

 

Seventeen year old Nathaniel Gliksman of Oswestry school, Shropshire, recently visited the Stanley Spencer Gallery to see some of Stanley Spencer's work.  He also visited the Tate Gallery, Liverpool to see the Resurrection in the exhibition there. He was so impressed he decided to paint his own version for his recent A2 exam. The photo shows him working on it and depicts the  local church with his friends and himself.

Author Peter Ackroyd Films at the Gallery

 

It was a busy day in the Spencer Gallery on Thursday 29th May because as well as visitors there was filming in the afternoon.   

 

Author Peter Ackroyd is making a four part documentary for ITV and Sky Arts about his recent book about the Thames – and of course a visit to the Gallery is a must! He spoke to the Gallery's curator Carolyn Leder, who can both be seen in the photo.

 

Peter Ackroyd's Thames will air from 07 August - at 20.00 (peak time!) on ITV London. It will play on Sky Arts in September. The interview with Carolyn appears in Episode 2 (14 August ITV London). I