Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A.

Arthur Tooth & Sons, London (as Husband and Wife), where acquired by the present owner's family 2nd December 1939 for £65.0.0

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Exhibition of Contemporary Art,  December 1939 - January 1940;
London, Tate Gallery, Stanley Spencer: A Retrospective Exhibition, November - December 1955, cat. no.47, illustrated pl.6, with tour to Birmingham, City Art Gallery;
Cookham-on-Thames, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Twice Annual Exhibition, opened 7th April 1962, cat. no.9 (as Beatitudes of Love, II- Knowing);
London, Tate Britain, Stanley Spencer, 22nd March - 24th June 2001, cat. no.65, illustrated p.165 (as Knowing).

Studio, No.126, 1943, illustrated p.52;
Elizabeth Rothenstein, Stanley Spencer, Phaidon Press, Oxford and London, 1945, illustrated pl.77 (as Husband and Wife);
Studio, No.147, 1959, p.39;
Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer: a Biography, Harvill Press, London, 1962, p.245 (as Beatitudes of Love II Knowing);
Louise Collis, A Private View of Stanley Spencer, Heinemann, London, 1972, p.108 (as Knowing);
Gilbert Spencer, Memoirs of a Painter, London 1974, p.198;
Kenneth Pople, Stanley Spencer: A Biography, Collins, London, 1991, pp.387-9, illustrated p.388 (as Beatitudes of Love: Knowing or The Grocer Couple);
Keith Bell, Stanley Spencer: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Phaidon Press, London, 1993, cat. no.274b, illustrated p.459.

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 14 Masons Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU. EXAMINATION / TREATMENT REPORT UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas is unlined on the original stretcher and there is a canvas stamp on the reverse. Paint surface The paint surface is stable and inspection under ultra-violet light shows no evidence of any retouching. There are a few very small spots that slightly fluoresce on the left vertical framing edge but I think these are surface deposits. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition. Please contact the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

'When I feel a certain degree of strength in my feelings and passions has been reached, I instinctively make my way into forms and things, anything belonging to the visible world, where I have found myself unable to get or have feelings for...I want then to transform some disliked thing into something I shall love, and so my kingdom and dwelling-place shall be enlarged.' (The Artist, writings in Tate Gallery Archive, 733.1.1687-90)

In the wake of his divorce from his first wife, Hilda Carline, and the immediate failure of his subsequent marriage to Patricia Preece, Spencer produced a series of paintings in which we can see him seeking to not only investigate the nature of relationships and their dynamics, but also look at his own position within them. Generally known now as The Beatitudes, this small group, usually agreed to number eight canvases, distil themes of attraction, involvement, familiarity and understanding into images of great potency.

By the middle of 1937, things had gone badly awry for Spencer. He was living at Lindworth, the large house he had bought on his return to Cookham in 1932, but as a virtual lodger having made it over to Preece in 1935. Divorcing Hilda had dealt a huge blow to the relationship that had nurtured him for so many years, and the marriage to Patricia was a marriage only in name as she continued to live at the other end of Cookham at Moor Thatch, the cottage she shared with her companion, Dorothy Hepworth. Severely in debt and emotionally battered, The Beatitudes paintings offer us a form of insight into the way Spencer reacted to this situation, exploring the difficult and tender topics of love, desire and infatuation.

Each of the paintings in The Beatitudes group has within its title a very particular theme, such as, in the present work, Knowing, Desire, Consciousness  or Contemplation (fig.1, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham). This focus on a very specific element in each painting is perhaps reminiscent of the intentions of a slightly earlier series of paintings, known as The Domestic Scenes and painted in 1935-36. Taking as their subject the remembered intimate moments of interaction between Spencer and Hilda, such as choosing a dress or preparing for bed, they are curious in that they had emerged at exactly the time when his real relationship with Hilda was being ended by divorce proceedings and thus perhaps presaged a recognition of the elements of domestic harmony that were being denied him. As in much of his work, once removed from the immediate ambit of either Hilda or Patricia, Spencer was able to explore his idealised concepts of the two women, and in The Domestic Scenes his evident delight in these recollected everyday incidents are heavy with meaning and personal significance.

In The Beatitudes, the message of harmony and togetherness of The Domestic Scenes is at best damaged, at worst splintered into jagged shards. The earliest of the group, known as Passion or Desire (Private Collection), shows two figures, the male having distinctly Stanley-like attributes and the female Patricia-like facial features but placed atop a huge body. Dwarfed by the much larger female figure, the small Stanley figure is very much in thrall to his companion and his own writings suggest this, harking towards a sense of sensual paradise apparently at odds with the malformed figures themselves.

Knowing is a much more redemptive painting. In his illuminating monograph on Spencer, Kenneth Pople identifies the male figure with Sergeant-Major William Kench, an authoritative figure remembered from Spencer's wartime service at the Beaufort Hospital. A powerful man who dwarfed many of his fellows and to some extent terrified the orderlies over whom he held sway, Spencer recalled Kench's bulky physique and massive, strong hands. Whilst in many of The Beatitudes paintings Spencer's own self-image is dwarfed by the female figures around him, here he appears to be mixing Stanley attributes with those of a man he felt exemplified a level of strength and authority. If this is the case, then it is clear that this painting suggests an attempt by Spencer to re-assert himself from the low point he had reached in his emotional and physical state. Indeed, throughout his life one characteristic that both he and his good friends felt he continually exhibited was that of optimism. No matter how disastrous the circumstances he found himself in, there is always a part of Spencer that is looking to move forward and escape from the wreckage. In both The Beatitudes paintings and The Christ in the Wilderness series that were executed almost immediately after, there is a strong sense of Spencer trying to re-establish his own identity and potency. However, the way in which this is done manifests a real feeling of tenderness and humility. Despite the disparity in their sizes, the clear bond between the two figures is evident, indeed they almost appear to form one single unit within the composition, and their small gestures and movements, such as the way the female figure's fingers brush the waistcoat front of her companion, speak volumes. Indeed, this very gesture caught the attention of Gilbert Spencer who felt that 'Her arm, sensitively elongated, stretches right across to his heart – the heart of her husband' (Gilbert Spencer, op.cit., p.198).

Although Spencer had been using the distortions of physique in his paintings to express his emotional response to the figures' attitudes and interaction, The Beatitudes paintings must have seemed to many contemporary viewers almost wilfully ugly. They were certainly not at all popular with some of his older patrons. Indeed Spencer recalled the reaction of Sir Edward Marsh, one of his most influential early supporters, to these paintings: 'It fogged his monocle...he had to keep wiping it and have another go. "Oh Stanley, are people really like that" I said: "What's the matter with them? They are all right aren't they?" "Terrible, terrible, Stanley!" Poor Eddie' (Maurice Collis, op. cit., 1962, p.144).

The Beatitudes paintings show us the point where Spencer, as Timothy Hyman puts it, 'abruptly changes gear' (Timothy Hyman and Patrick Wright (ed.), Stanley Spencer, Tate Publishing, London 2001, p.27). Here his figures become separated from any need to conform to a pre-determined narrative, they simply express those emotional states for which Spencer sees them as vehicles. In some cases, such as Consciousness (Private Collection), the ugliness of the pair of figures deliberately allows nowhere for the kindly viewer to find sanctuary, every element of their appearance, posture, manner or dress is utterly without anything one could reassure them about. Yet by doing this, by making them so completely outside any sort of 'norm', Spencer is telling us that their relationship has a validity and substance that can outdistance most of our own, based as it is on a pure form of understanding, of consciousness of each other. It was this realisation that human form and emotional content have no actual need to constrain each other in his paintings which released Spencer to the production of some of his most powerful and extraordinary imagery.