SKU: 11367
Gilbert Spencer
(1892 - 1979)
The Farmer with his herd
£3,500
Sold
Gilbert Spencer (1892 - 1979)
Size:
Height – 50.8cm
Width – 75.9cm
Gilbert Spencer painted Hebridean Memory, a landscape set on the small Island of Canna in the Scottish Inner Hebrides for the Festival of Britain exhibition ‘Sixty Paintings for 51’. Hebridean Memory depicts several of Canna’s landmarks and the locals going about island activities – farming and lobster and mackerel fishing – whilst visitors sunbathe.The composition also includes a whimsical depiction in the right fore- ground of the artist and his older brother Stanley as their younger selves.
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.
