Stanley Spencer Resurrection Paintings

Stanley spencer was born in 1891 in cookham a village that emotionally at least he never left throughout his life.

Stanley spencer resurrection paintings. Self portrait stanley spencer 1914. Since student days stanley had been intrigued by personal interpretations of the resurrection and by 1914 had made a couple of experimental paintings. Animal painting 4 cityscape 14 flower painting 6 genre painting 97 history painting 1 landscape 47 mythological painting 1 nude painting nu 5. The centre piece of the exhibition was the resurrection cookham which received rave reviews in the british press.

It shows the resurrection the christian belief that at the end the world everyone who has ever existed will be brought back to life. Study for a resurrection stanley spencer 1914. The paintings of stanley spencer. Shipbuilding on the clyde 1939 1945 that commemorated the war effort and the port glasgow resurrection 1939 1945 inspired by the graveyard near the town port glasgow.

This painting is set in the cemetery in scottish town of port glasgow. During the immediate post war period he resumed biblical themes including in 1920 21 a smaller resurrection cookham in a stylised vorticist manner. Throughout his career spencer repeatedly returned to the subject of the resurrection in paintings that were hugely popular both critically and commercially. The chapel is a temple to the genius of spencer who wanted to express in paint his military experience during the great war.

Local people climb out of their graves greet one another and raise their hands in ecstatic gratitude. A dull gray and brown macedonian battlefield landscape takes up the majority of the mural spencer would often omit sky or provide a high horizon to contain the work which is strewn with the dead and dying. Both series received critical acclaim and spencer rejoined the royal academy in 1950. Spencer s career stabilized in the following decade and immediately following world war ii he worked on two large painting series.

Love death and resurrection. Only two previous exhibits have been held in united states. The resurrection cookham 1924 1927 oil on canvas tate gallery. Spencer always described them in symbolic terms.

Spencer makes his local churchyard the setting for this resurrection of the dead. Just a handful of his paintings can be seen in public collections. The black figures in the centre of the composition are not based on individuals however. He depicts biblical figures alongside people he knew in the scene including his wife and a self portrait.

In february 1927 spencer held his first one man exhibition at the goupil gallery. The centerpiece in the chapel the resurrection of the soldiers brings together the sacred and the profane in spencer s unique way. Sir stanley spencer 1891 1959 one of the great visionary painters of the 20th century is virtually unknown to north american audiences.