From My Studio, ca. 1959

Gilbert Spencer RA (1892 - 1979)

RA Collection: Art

Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) painted portraits, genre scenes and murals but was chiefly a landscape artist. He mainly painted the landscapes of the southern English counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Dorset. This windy, wintry view demonstrates his longstanding interest in rural scenes marked by human activity. Here he makes use of the apparently random elements of an open gate and chicken coop to draw the spectator into the scene. The use of muted greys, blues and greens is typical of Spencer's work.

Born at Cookham, Berkshire thirteen months after his brother, the painter Stanley Spencer, Spencer studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, the Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. He had his first one-man show at the Goupil Gallery in 1923. From 1940-1943 he was appointed an official war artist. Spencer taught at the Royal College of Art and was Head of Painting both at Glasgow School of Art and Camberwell. He published the biography Stanley Spencer in 1961 and his autobiography Memoirs of a Painter (1974).