.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
By 1950, Spencer had at last received public recognition and with this fame came a string of portrait commissions. He had already worked on a number of portraits throughout his career but these had previously been confined to people that he knew intimately. This familiarity is often conveyed through the intensity with which Spencer depicts his subjects, an intensity that is also apparent in his later portraits.
Keith Bell comments, 'One of the most successful aspects of Spencer's portrait paintings of the fifties was their powerful atmosphere of modernity. His insistence upon accurately rendered detail, the informal nature of the compositions, and his apparent indifference to any significant historical influences, all blended to create paintings which were striking in their contemporary feel. In this, Spencer's work bears some relationship to that of the younger artist Lucien Freud, although the latter used his equally sharp sense of detail to emphasize aspects of the human condition: isolation, tension and desire. These elements were sometimes present in Spencer's nudes of the thirties, but were almost entirely absent from the altogether more relaxed post-war paintings. In taking this unidealized approach Spencer also expressed what Sir John Rothenstein has called 'the inclusiveness of Stanley Spencer's love,' in which all types of humanity, beautiful or ugly, were accorded the same or equal treatment in his paintings: an entitlement to parity which Spencer felt they also deserved before God' (op. cit., pp. 356-62).
The sitter of the present work is Sibyl Williams (née Grain) who married Eric Williams in 1948. Eric had been a wartime pilot and was awarded the MC in 1944 after his ingenious escape from Stalag Luft III in Silesia (later part of Poland). He wrote several books on military history including Goon on the Block (1945) and The Wooden Horse (1945), both of which were bestsellers. Sibyl was Eric's second wife and had been appointed MBE for her service as an officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service and personal secretary to the admiral (submarines) during the war.
Spencer had originally been commissioned by Sibyl to draw a pencil portrait of her husband in 1954 (National Portrait Gallery), but Spencer found the drawing unsatisfactory and instead offered to paint a canvas for the same sum (Bell no. 400, fig. 1). A year later he returned to the Williamses at Sea Cliff, Strete, near Dartmouth, to paint the present work, which had been commissioned by Eric.
This acutely observed portrait demonstrates Spencer's skill both as a perceptive portraitist and as an expert painter. His faithful attention to detail is shown in the uncompromising depiction of the wrinkles that line Sibyl's face, while the closed-in focus of the composition gives the viewer an impression of familiarity with the sitter as they are held in Sibyl's direct gaze. Sibyl sat for this portrait with no make-up or distracting props - she wears a plain blue open necked shirt and is portrayed against a bland background of brick wall and wooden bookshelf. This lack of artifice or diversion from the main subject focuses the viewer on Spencer's masterful brushwork, which describes each different surface with an undeniable accuracy, imbuing this remarkable portrait with a photographic realism.
Keith Bell comments, 'One of the most successful aspects of Spencer's portrait paintings of the fifties was their powerful atmosphere of modernity. His insistence upon accurately rendered detail, the informal nature of the compositions, and his apparent indifference to any significant historical influences, all blended to create paintings which were striking in their contemporary feel. In this, Spencer's work bears some relationship to that of the younger artist Lucien Freud, although the latter used his equally sharp sense of detail to emphasize aspects of the human condition: isolation, tension and desire. These elements were sometimes present in Spencer's nudes of the thirties, but were almost entirely absent from the altogether more relaxed post-war paintings. In taking this unidealized approach Spencer also expressed what Sir John Rothenstein has called 'the inclusiveness of Stanley Spencer's love,' in which all types of humanity, beautiful or ugly, were accorded the same or equal treatment in his paintings: an entitlement to parity which Spencer felt they also deserved before God' (op. cit., pp. 356-62).
The sitter of the present work is Sibyl Williams (née Grain) who married Eric Williams in 1948. Eric had been a wartime pilot and was awarded the MC in 1944 after his ingenious escape from Stalag Luft III in Silesia (later part of Poland). He wrote several books on military history including Goon on the Block (1945) and The Wooden Horse (1945), both of which were bestsellers. Sibyl was Eric's second wife and had been appointed MBE for her service as an officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service and personal secretary to the admiral (submarines) during the war.
Spencer had originally been commissioned by Sibyl to draw a pencil portrait of her husband in 1954 (National Portrait Gallery), but Spencer found the drawing unsatisfactory and instead offered to paint a canvas for the same sum (Bell no. 400, fig. 1). A year later he returned to the Williamses at Sea Cliff, Strete, near Dartmouth, to paint the present work, which had been commissioned by Eric.
This acutely observed portrait demonstrates Spencer's skill both as a perceptive portraitist and as an expert painter. His faithful attention to detail is shown in the uncompromising depiction of the wrinkles that line Sibyl's face, while the closed-in focus of the composition gives the viewer an impression of familiarity with the sitter as they are held in Sibyl's direct gaze. Sibyl sat for this portrait with no make-up or distracting props - she wears a plain blue open necked shirt and is portrayed against a bland background of brick wall and wooden bookshelf. This lack of artifice or diversion from the main subject focuses the viewer on Spencer's masterful brushwork, which describes each different surface with an undeniable accuracy, imbuing this remarkable portrait with a photographic realism.