Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979)

1892 - 1979

Gilbert Spencer was born at Fernley Villa, Cookham, Berkshire on 4th August 1892.

He was the eighth son and youngest of eleven children of father, William Spencer, organist and music teacher and mother, Anna Caroline Slack, who were married in 1873, in Cookham. Gilbert’s brother, the artist Stanley Spencer was just 13 months older than him. The family had very little spare money so formal education for Gilbert did not start until he was 16 when he briefly attended a private school in Maidenhead. During his childhood within his musical family, he spent much time observing nature, making wooden models of farm carts and living and observing rural village life.

His early years had a great influence on his life as a painter of landscapes, portraits, figure compositions and mural decorations. He worked in oils and watercolour, mostly on landscape vistas of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Dorset and the Lake District.

From 1911-1912, Gilbert studied at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts and the Royal College of Art which included wood carving. In 1913 – 1915 he joined his brother Stanley at the Slade School of Fine Art under the tutelage of Henry Tonks who remained a great influence throughout his life. He won the coveted life drawing prize in 1914 and was the runner-up for the summer competition prize with a huge mural “The seven ages of man”, now at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada. With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Gilbert’s career was interrupted until 1919 ... show more

Gilbert Spencer was born at Fernley Villa, Cookham, Berkshire on 4th August 1892.

He was the eighth son and youngest of eleven children of father, William Spencer, organist and music teacher and mother, Anna Caroline Slack, who were married in 1873, in Cookham. Gilbert’s brother, the artist Stanley Spencer was just 13 months older than him. The family had very little spare money so formal education for Gilbert did not start until he was 16 when he briefly attended a private school in Maidenhead. During his childhood within his musical family, he spent much time observing nature, making wooden models of farm carts and living and observing rural village life.

His early years had a great influence on his life as a painter of landscapes, portraits, figure compositions and mural decorations. He worked in oils and watercolour, mostly on landscape vistas of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Dorset and the Lake District.

From 1911-1912, Gilbert studied at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts and the Royal College of Art which included wood carving. In 1913 – 1915 he joined his brother Stanley at the Slade School of Fine Art under the tutelage of Henry Tonks who remained a great influence throughout his life. He won the coveted life drawing prize in 1914 and was the runner-up for the summer competition prize with a huge mural “The seven ages of man”, now at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada. With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Gilbert’s career was interrupted until 1919

when he was to return to the Slade with a scholarship for another year. He left an unfinished work “Sashes Meadow” before he went to war, which was later acquired by the Tate.

As pacifists, both Gilbert and Stanley served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, initially at the Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol, after which Gilbert was drafted to the Macedonian front serving in Salonika and the Eastern Mediterranean from 1915-1919. His painting from this period “New Arrivals: F4 Ward, No. 36, Stationary Hospital, Mahemdia, Senai” hangs in the Imperial War Museum. These war years would have influenced this much later work, “Convalescent” 1974 in terms of sheet changing, iron beds of the era, plus other notable works of curtained windows during Gilbert’s career.

In 1919, he became a member of the New English Club, meeting Hilda Carline, his brother’s future wife and her brother Sydney. In 1922, he became an Art Master at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford and Sydney Carline asked Gilbert to join his staff at the University. Lady Ottoline Morrell found him a room in the village of Garsington. Her home was Garsington Manor which was frequented by many illustrious guests including the Bloomsbury set. He painted “Trees at Garsington”, “Garsington rooftops” and “the sheep fold at Upper Farm” during this period.

In 1923, Gilbert Spencer had his first solo exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, London. In 1930, he was appointed to the staff of the Royal College of Art by the artist Sir William Rothenstein and during this year, he married Ursula Bradshaw, a former Ruskin pupil. The artist John Nash (brother of Paul Nash) was his best man.

In 1934, he was commissioned by Balliol College, Oxford to paint murals for its new building a Holywell Manor. These depicted “A Foundation Legend”. Work was completed in 1936 and he left Oxford with his wife and daughter, Gillian (born 21st October 1936) to live at Tree Cottage, Upper Basildon, Reading, Berkshire from 1936 to 1970. They would spend their holidays at Burdens Farmhouse, Nr Compton Abbas, Dorset from 1931 – 1936. “We loved the place on sight and took it from the farmer, Ivor Day, for 10 shillings a week plus rates”.

At this time, Gilbert embarked on a distinguished career as an Art Teacher, beginning as Professor of Painting in 1932 at the Royal College of Art, London. From 1939–1945 the College was evacuated to the Queens Hotel, Ambleside, Cumbria, during which time Gilbert served as an official war artist in the Home Guard. The Imperial War Museum commissioned a number of paintings from him including “Grasmere Home guard”. A book entitled “The Royal College of Art in the Lake District 1940-1945” by Robert Woolf was written in 1987 on these years.

From 1948-1950, Gilbert became the Head of the Department of Painting at Glasgow School of Art and from 1950–1957 was the Head of Painting at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts under the Principal Leonard Daniels. On 21 April 1950, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA).

and on 23 April 1959 elected as a full Royal Academician (RA). He resigned in 1968 but rejoined again in 1971. He recorded his year of birth on membership forms as 1893, but as 1892 in his autobiography.

In 1961, he both wrote and illustrated the book “Stanley Spencer”. In 1964, he had a retrospective exhibition at Reading and in 1974 a further retrospective at the Fine Art Society, London.

After 1970, Gilbert retired and moved to Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk. Although he could no longer paint, he wrote his “Memoirs of a Painter” in 1974, entered once again into family and village life, just as he had done in his early childhood. He had illustrated a book “In country places” by Eiluned Lewis in 1951.

He died in a nursing home at Lynderswood Court, Black Notley, Braintree, Essex on 14th January 1979.

Gilbert Spencer’s work is normally signed with his name joined up. He exhibited widely during his lifetime and works are found in many private collections and represented in the V&A Museum, Manchester City Galleries, the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, the Belfast City Art Gallery, The Tate Gallery, the Royal Academy and the Imperial War Museum.