Born in 1891 in the Berkshire village of Cookham, a place that was to be his home and his main inspiration for most of his life. As one of eight children, Spencer came from a remarkable family, which produced a knight of the realm, two professors, a concert violinist, a professional stage magician, the director of the National Building Institute, an Oxford graduate and two professional artists.
After being educated in the local school, set up by his father (basically a shed in the garden next door, where his two sisters were teachers and lessons revolved around biblical studies, music and nature walks) Spencer went to Maidenhead Technical College and then on to Slade School of Art from 1908 to 1912, he commuted every day by train from Cookham. His fellow students at Slade included, Nevinson, Gertler, Bomberg, the Nash brothers and William Roberts. This put Spencer in the middle of a time of great upheavel in British painting, the forces of modernism began to inflict a great influence on many painters work, although its influence on Spencer is debatable, he did exhibit at Fry's 2nd Post-Impressionist show in 1912.
The Great War interrupted his career as a painter, he enlisted in the Royal Medical Corps and worked as a medical orderly at Beaufort Hospital in Bristol and then in 1916 he was stationed with the field ambulance in the Macedonian campaign. The war had a profound effect on Spencer and he began to conceive the idea of working on a memorial, this later came to fruition when in 1927 he was commisioned to decorate the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere in Berkshire. The murals he produced there are based on the every day soldiers experience and show us different aspects of Spencers time in both the Beaufort Hospital and on the front line.
Throughtout the 20s and 30s Spencer developed his own unique style. Much of his work was influenced by his own religious beliefs and many paintings show biblical stories taking place amongst the villagers of his beloved Cookham. Spencer once said that he had two lives, the physical, secular life he called his "down to earth life" and a metaphysical, creative life he called his "up in heaven life" these were combined in his work, thus many of his paintings show us an extended reality of his life by using religous iconography. To think of Spencer as a wholly religous painter would be a narrow concept, for his work often deals with many issuses of the human condition such as love, loss, sex, death and the whole range of human emotions. His work of this period has a deep complexity which often leaves us perplexed and unsure about what Spencer is trying to achieve, he is often labelled an enigma.
In 1940, Spencer was commisioned as a war artist and produced a series of pictures depicting ship building on the Clyde, known as the Glasgow series these paintings are now housed in the Imperial War Museum.
Spencer also produced a whole series of paintings in the 40s and 50s that seem to lack any of the complexity of his previous work, these are mainly landscapes and portraits, although these are wonderful paintings with distinct beauty we must consider the commercial aspect of Spencers life, his second wife, Patricia, would today be called "high maintenance" and Spencer paid her considerable expenses until the day he died.
His first wife Hilda remained the love of his life and he continued writing to her, even after her death. He was a most sociable person with many friends and surpporters. He is often considered an eccentric, Patricia in her diaries called him "mad" as a character he was certainly different and unusual.The small man with twinkling eyes and a mop of shaggy grey hair (often wearing his pyjamas under his suit) became a familiar sight wandering the lanes of Cookham pushing the old pram in which he carried his canvas and easel.
During his lifetime he awarded a CBE and a Knighthood, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and was a member of the Royal Academy. Spencer travelled extensively around England and across Europe on many painting trips, he also visited China in 1954, but it is with Cookham that he will always be associated, his own little piece of heaven in the Berkshire countryside.
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