The main reason for this particular trip up North was to see the latest Stanley Spencer exhibition, entitled 'Of Angles and Dirt' at The Hepworth, Wakefield. I am a massive Stanley Spencer fan these days and of course, need little incentive to head back North to the land of the living.
' I like my life so much that I would like to cover every empty space on a wall with it,’ said Stanley. Now at the Hepworth, the walls are covered with life affirming paintings from every stage of his career, from his first steps as an artist before the First World War to his death in 1959. In these troubled times, this is a show to cheer you up.
These uplifting pictures reconfirm Stanley"s status as one of the finest British artists of the last century; a brilliant draughtsman with a unique, euphoric vision of the world. The title comes from something he said himself: ‘I am on the side of angels and of dirt.’ Spencer doesn’t shirk the pain of life, but his art is full of hope.
Stanley Spencer was born in 1891 in Cookham, a pretty Berkshire village on the River Thames, which is little changed these days from how it was in Stanley's childhood. His father was a piano teacher amd church organist. His childhood was cultured, eccentric and financially constrained. The eighth of nine surviving children (all of whom grew up to become artists or musicians) he was home-schooled by his elder sisters and showed a flair for drawing from an early age. His parents encouraged him all the way.
Stanley won a place at the Slade, one of Britain’s most prestigious art schools, where he prospered, but his career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Great War.
He joined up as a medical orderley, and was sent to Macedonia, after training in Bristol and Hampshire. The trauma of war nearly crushed him. But in the end, it elevated his art to new heights. While his Slade contemporary Paul Nash portrayed the desolation of the Western Front, Stanley depicted the humanity of his comrades on the Salonika front and in the Beaumont War hopsital and his belief in a happy afterlife. ‘I had buried so many people and saw so many dead bodies that I felt that death could not be the end of everything,’ he said.
Stanley returned to Cookham, married and had two children. However in 1937 he entered a disastrous second marriage with Patricia Preece, a lesbian who refused to leave her lover or consummate the marriage, ruined him financially and subsequently kicked him out.
Stanley was a man out of time, a hippy in ration book Britain. This caused great problems in his private life, but it galvanised his art.
Of Angels And Dirt begins with a range of self-portraits, from Stanley’s youth to his old age, but the highlights of this show are his extraordinary religious paintings - scenes from the Gospels transported to the Home Counties.
Spencer’s spirituality illuminates his greatest works of art, from paintings of the Last Supper to the Shipbuilders on the Clyde Series. These sum up what made Stanley such a special artist. His shipbuilders are heroic figures, but they’re also tender and childlike.
Spencer went to Lithgows shipyard in Port Glasgow to research these monumental paintings. It was an experience which inspired him deeply. These shipbuilders warmed to him, but they clearly thought him rather odd.
‘Many of the corners of Lithgows factory moved me in much the same way as the rooms of my childhood,’ enthused Spencer. ‘You’ll go out of your nut,’ they told him. They were probably quite right, but what enthralling visions he produced.
It is amazing that this exhibition is free. It is clearly and concisely explained and well worth payimg £3 for an audio as these share with you Stanley's own writings. There are three big rooms and one smaller one.
You can read more about Stanley Spencer in my blog post of 6th August about the Sandham Memorial Chapel, where I volunteer.
Next, enthused by Stanley, we have a walk and picnic in the wind at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Then a beer stop at Elsecar.
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