Book Description
One of the most highly regarded and well known of all twentieth-century British artists, Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) is famous for two things. He immortalized the Berkshire village of Cookham, where he was born and spent most of his life. And he celebrated sex both on his canvases and through his unconventional understanding of relationships. Perhaps best known for his paintings of biblical subjects set in and around Cookham--in particular, The Resurrection, Cookham--Spencer was also an official war artist during both World Wars. In his paintings and in his life, he reveled in the intense ordinariness of the world he inhabited. His mature art fuses things most often thought of as separate: religion and sex, the real and the imaginary, public and private, the young and the old, the self and others. In this excellent introduction to the artist and his work, Kitty Hauser reveals how Spencer's art grew out of places, experiences, and social relations that enriched his imagination. Though Spencer is often described as visionary, this book shows that his brand of mysticism was firmly grounded in material reality--in landscapes, homes, and the human relationships he felt so strongly.

About the Author
Kitty Hauser is an art historian whose work has been published widely, including in the Burlington Magazine and the New Left Review. She won the Bernard Denvir Memorial Award for Art Criticism in 1999.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) is one of the best-known, most highly regarded and best-loved of all twentieth-century British artists. He is famous for two things: his immortalisation of his home village of Cookham; and his celebration of sex both in his painted works and in his unconventional attitudes to relationships. His aim as a mature artist was to fuse together in his work things that are thought of as separate: religion and sex, the real and the imaginary, love and dirt, public and private, the young and the old, the heavenly and the earthbound, the self and others.