SKU: 11367
Gilbert Spencer
(1892 - 1979)
The Farmer with his herd
£2,850
Gilbert Spencer (1892 - 1979)
£55,000
Size:
Height – 71.5cm
Width – 56cm
1 in stock
Spencer’s landscapes were usually painted en plein air, and rarely include figures. The enigmatic figure in the foreground of this painting implies that this is partly an imaginative composition. The distinctive profile of Terwick Mill was probably painted from sketches made the previous year, while Spencer was visiting nearby Iping, where he painted View from Iping House (c. 1931, untraced) and Spring at Iping (c. 1931, untraced).
The date on this helped to narrow down potential candidates from the list of works exhibited around this time, and Terwick Mill can be identified in this 1948 photograph. The Mill has been converted to a residential property and was recently on the market with Savills.
We are grateful to Paul Gough and Amy Lim for providing this information through their online catalogue.
Painter, especially of landscapes, draughtsman, teacher and writer, and brother of the painter Stanley Spencer. Born at Cookham, Berkshire. Spencer studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, woodcarving at the Royal College of Art, 1911-12, then with Fred Brown and Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Fine Art, 1913-20. Between 1915 and 1919 he served in the army. Spencer had his first one-man show at the Goupil Gallery in 1923; he also exhibited at the RA (he was elected RA in 1960), NEAC, (of which he was a member), Leicester Galleries, RSA, Redfern Gallery and many other venues. Although he produced notable wall paintings for Holywell Manor, Oxford, 1934-6, Spencer made his name as a landscape artist working mainly in the English southern counties. At various times he taught at the Royal College of Art, Glasgow School of Art and Camberwell, serving meanwhile as an Official War Artist, 1940-3. His book Stanley Spencer appeared in 1961 and his autobiography, Memoirs of a Painter, in 1974. A retrospective exhibition was held at Reading in 1964. The Tate and many other public collections hold his work. He sometimes just signed his work GS. He lived in Hampstead and towards the end of his life near Reading, Berkshire.
