Exhibition Catalogue

Exhibition Catalogue I Stanley Spencer: Letters and Writings

Stanley Spencer was one of the most innovative British painters of his era. Amongst his greatest works are his pre-First World War paintings and the strange, complex pieces of the mid-1930s, produced at a time of marital and stylistic crisis. This catalogue celebrates the achievements of an artist who explored, experimented and developed over five decades.

Many previous accounts of Spencer's oeuvre, including the artist's own, have tended to interpret all his post-1914 work as a quest for some lost wholeness. But it was precisely because of a 'loss of Eden' that Spencer was able to fully participate in the experience of the inter-war years, and to explore a newly discovered sexuality and selfhood. This catalogue accompanies a carefully selected yet comprehensive exhibition of Spencer's work, presenting him as a major artist of the twentieth century who was profoundly engaged with the the shifting nature of modern life. Timothy Hyman charts Spencer's work as an process of autobiographical relevation, tracing his transition from the monumental Christain idealism of Giotto to his confrontation with raw reality and sexual fantasy in the crisis years of the 1930s. Patrick Wright focuses on Spencer in the 1920s, uncovering new social milieu and pointing to hidden themes in the murals Spencer painted for Burghclere Chapel.

• Foreword
  
• Stanley Spencer: Angels and Dirt - Timothy Hyman
  
• Purposeful Art in a Climate of Cultural Change: Stanley Spencer in the 1920s - Patrick Wright
  
• Stanley Spencer's Lists - Adrian Glew
  
• A Note on Burghclere
  
• The Church-House
  
• Virtual Reality Project
  
• Select Bibliography
  
• Index

Timothy Hyman is a painter and art historian and Patrick Wright is a cultural historian, both widely published. David Fraser Jenkins, Robert Upstone, Katherine Stout and Adrian Glew are Tate Curators.

This catalogue can be ordered from the Tate online shop.

Adrian Glew Stanley Spencer is recognised as a British artist of singular vision, but he was also a prolifc and highly individual writer. In moments between painting, Spencer wrote thousands of letters. He filled notebooks, diaries and scraps of paper, recording his daily thoughts and future plans in a distinctly Spencerian manner.

This book brings together for the first time an extensive selection of Spencer's key letters, notes and theoretical writings. Adrian Glew has selected from the wealth of Spencer's unpublished manuscripts in the Tate Archive and includes important sections of Spencer's autobiography which remained unfinished at the time of his death. Spencer always believed that his writings were as important as his paintings, and this volume offers a unique insight into Spencer as writer, thinker and artist.

• Introduction: A Maze in Heaven
  
• List of Correspondents
  
• Childhood and Lessons in Art 1891-1907
  
• The Slade and Cookham 1908-1913
  
• War and Peace 1914-1919
  
• Courtship and Marriage 1920-1938
  
• War Artist and Port Glasgow 1939-1945
  
• Recognition and Redemption 1946-1959
  
• Notes
  
• Index
  

Adrian Glew is a Curator in the Tate Archive.

This catalogue can be ordered from the Tate online shop.