Portrait study of Lady Slesser

Spencer first met Henry Slesser (later Sir Henry Slesser, Solicitor General in the Labour Government of the twenties) and his wife Margaret, when his friends the Behrends took him and Gilbert Spencer to tea at the Slesser's home, Cornerways, Bourne End, near Cookham in November 1919. The Slessers invited him to stay with them and, needing space to work in, he readily accepted, moving in during April 1920. During the year he stayed with them, he painted nearly twenty pictures, including Portrait of Lady Slesser, (Private Collection), circa 1920, (Bell 33) for which the present work is almost certainly a preliminary study.