Spencer, Stanley

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English painter. He was born and lived in Cookham-on-Thames, and recreated the Christian story in a Cookham setting. Typically his dreamlike compositions combine a dry, meticulously detailed, and often humorous depiction of everyday life with an elaborate religious symbolism, as in The Resurrection, Cookham (1924–26; Tate Gallery, London).

He studied at the Slade School from 1910 to 1914, and served in World War I. The influence of his military service is evident in his great mural paintings for the Memorial Chapel, All Soul's, at Burghclere, Hampshire, which depict crowded and active scenes of military life and the Resurrection, a recurrent theme in his work.

For most of the remainder of Spencer's work two sources are responsible, Cookham and the Bible, and his pictures are a highly individual blend of the real and the imaginary. Other major works include Christ Carrying the Cross (1920; Tate Gallery, London), and intimate scenes such as Self-portrait with Patricia Preece (1936; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) and The Dustman, or The Lovers (1934; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). He was knighted in 1959.

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