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Stanley Spencer

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Artist

The Resume

    (June 30, 1891-December 14, 1959)
    Born in Cookham, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom
    Best known for paintings of Biblical events as if they happened in Cookham (e.g. 'The Resurrection, Cookham' [1927])
    Also painted 'Leg of Mutton Nude' (a.k.a 'Double Nude Portrait of the Artist and His Second Wife,' 1937), 'Shipbuilding on the Clyde' (series, 1940-44), and 'Self Portrait' (1959)
    Knighted (1959)

Why he might be annoying:

    During his marriage to Hilda Carline, he became obsessed with Patricia Preece, showering her with jewelry, furs, and other expensive gifts, while expecting his wife and children to live on 30 shillings a week.
    Four days after Carline divorced him, he married Preece (1937).
    He then asked Carline to move in with him and Preece in a menage a trois, and was quite surprised when she faield to find the proposal as enticing as he did.
    For their honeymoon, he stayed in Cookham to finish a painting, while Preece and her lover, Dorothy Hepburn, went to St. Ives.
    He asked Carline to remarry him (1942), but she refused, saying, 'You are too much of an artist to have satisfactory relations with any woman.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He served as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Macedonia during World War I; he later transferred to an infantry unit and served on the front lines until he contracted malaria and was invalided out.
    After he put Preece in charge of his finances, she had him evicted from his house, then rented it out.
    Despite their divorce, he and Carline remained close; he was at her bedside when she died from breast cancer (1950) and they were buried together in Cookham Cemetery.
    He influenced Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon.
    The Times of London hailed 'The Resurrection, Cookham' as 'the most important picture painted by any English artist in the present century.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying