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Lot Essay
Here Spencer has joined together several separate sketches into one sheet. These sketches of different subjects and figures do not translate to one particular finished work, but rather provide an interesting insight into Spencer's thought processes and planning.
Certain objects, subjects and figures recur throughout his work, in particular here during the 1930s, and it is possible to see similarities with ideas relating to oil compositions. Behind the figures in the centre sheet appears the brick wall in Cookham that formed the backdrop to many of Spencer's scenes. The grouping of the bearded men towards the right appear elsewhere in his work as 'disciples' blessing Cookham or as wise men in his The Coming of the Wise Men (The Nativity), 1940 (private collection). The women to the far right are reminiscent of those in his Promenade of Women, 1938 (private collection). At the centre the small figure in short trousers reappears in Spencer's work, often as a self-portrait, as in his later 1950 work The Farm Gate (Royal Academy, London). This figure is closely tied to his Hilda works, and the same pattern of dress worn by Hilda in Beatitude 4: Passion or Desire, 1938 (private collection) also appears in the present drawing.
Certain objects, subjects and figures recur throughout his work, in particular here during the 1930s, and it is possible to see similarities with ideas relating to oil compositions. Behind the figures in the centre sheet appears the brick wall in Cookham that formed the backdrop to many of Spencer's scenes. The grouping of the bearded men towards the right appear elsewhere in his work as 'disciples' blessing Cookham or as wise men in his The Coming of the Wise Men (The Nativity), 1940 (private collection). The women to the far right are reminiscent of those in his Promenade of Women, 1938 (private collection). At the centre the small figure in short trousers reappears in Spencer's work, often as a self-portrait, as in his later 1950 work The Farm Gate (Royal Academy, London). This figure is closely tied to his Hilda works, and the same pattern of dress worn by Hilda in Beatitude 4: Passion or Desire, 1938 (private collection) also appears in the present drawing.