| Date | 23 August 2013 |
|---|---|
| Source | Slough Observer |
| Reference | VP-0054 |
| Volume | Views of the Past |
| Collection | Views of the Past |
Transcript
Artist’s brush with village
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ONE of Cookham’s most notable residents was Sir Stanley Spencer, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.
Stanley was born on June 30, 1891 to William and Annie Spencer and was their tenth child.
His father, William, was a music teacher who had Lady Ettie Desborough and Lord Boston as his pupils.
Stanley was born in a house called Fernlea on Cookham High Street, a semi-detached house which had been built by his grandfather Julius Spencer.
Stanley was to live in Cookham for most of his life and lived in a house in the centre of Cookham called Lindworth which he purchased in 1932.
He later moved to Cliveden View in Cookham Rise after the war.
He moved back to Fernlea for the last year of his life in 1958.
Stanley studied at the Slade School of Art from 1908 and returned to Cookham in 1912.
He then started to work on views which incorporated Cookham Village which he saw ‘as a kind of earthly paradise’ – his paintings featured local houses, friends and family.
During the First World War he was in the Royal Medical Corps and was posted to Macedonia in 1916 – some of his memories of war were recorded in the purpose built Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere near Newbury.
In 1925 he married Hilda Carline but was later to have an affair with Patricia Preece whom he married after his divorce in 1937.
Between 1940 and 1946 Stanley produced a number of works depicting shipbuilding on the River Clyde.
After the war he returned to Cookham to work on his largest work – Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, which remained unfinished at his death.
During this time he was often seen pushing his painting equipment in a dilapidated black pram with his pyjama trousers peeping out underneath his trousers.
He was knighted in July 1959 and died five months later on December 14 of cancer at the Canadian Red Cross Hospital in Taplow.
His ashes were buried in Cookham Churchyard. The Stanley Spencer Gallery, which displays his work, was opened in 1962 in an old Wesleyan Chapel.
Stanley Spencer is now regarded as the most important British painter in the first half of the 20th century.
PAINTING A PICTURE: Sir Stanley Spencer working in Cookham Village.
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