SKU: 11367
Gilbert Spencer
(1892 - 1979)
The Farmer with his herd
£2,850
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Gilbert Spencer (1892 - 1979)
Size:
Height – 223cm
Width – 168cm
The date on the Abbot Hall caption was given as 1935, but it is signed and dated 1932. The date of 1932 is corroborated by Gilbert’s Memoirs, in which he describes how he was working on this painting when he was first approached by Balliol for the
mural scheme, which was in 1932.
Gilbert Spencer was one of the leading artists of his day, but has since suffered from neglect, largely as a result of being overshadowed by his more famous older brother, Stanley. Through their communal upbringing and Slade School training, the work of the two brothers is clearly united by a common thread – manifest in their devotion to accurate observation, intense sincerity and impeccable technique. But less interested than Stanley in the drama of human passion, however, the novelty of Gilbert’s work lies in his fascination with landscape, and in the incidents of everyday life in England that he was so adept at capturing.
Spencer added his unique voice to the great tradition of English pastoral painting. The Secretary of the Royal Academy, Sidney Hutchinson, remarked that Spencer ‘might well be called the John Constable of the Twentieth Century.’
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.
