Stanley Spencer: Of Angels and Dirt Hepworth Wakefield

To commemorate the 125th anniversary of Stanley Spencer’s birth, The Hepworth Wakefield has made a special film with Spencer’s family, his daughters Shirin and Unity and his grandson John as they take a first look at our new exhibition 'Stanley Spencer: Of Angels and Dirt'.

British painter Stanley Spencer was born on 30 June 1891 at the family home Fernlea on Cookham High Street, a small village in Berkshire. In 1925, Spencer married Hilda Carline, an artist who was a fellow student at the Slade and the sister of Stanley’s friends and fellow artists, Richard and Sydney Carline. His daughter, Shirin, was born in November of that year and his second daughter, Unity, in 1930. The family home was by Hampstead Heath in London until the Spencer family moved to Burghclere in 1927. Shirin became a teacher and Unity an artist, whose autobiography 'Lucky to be an Artist' was published in 2015. 

The first major survey in 15 years of the work of one of Britain’s best loved painters, Stanley Spencer, is now open at The Hepworth Wakefield. Presented during the 125th anniversary of Spencer’s birth, the exhibition brings together over 70 works spanning his entire career, including rarely-seen self-portraits and extracts from his diaries and writings offering a unique insight into his life and work.

The exhibition explores the seemingly conflicting themes that Spencer fused together in his richly detailed paintings, of religion and sexuality, work and leisure, nature and industry, highlighting Spencer’s distinctive view of everyday life. As Spencer himself put it, ‘I am on the side of angels and dirt’.

Stanley Spencer: Of Angels and Dirt
The Hepworth Wakefield 
25 June – 5 October 2016
Free entry www.hepworthwakefield.org/stanley-spencer