Beatitudes VI (Consciousness)

Details

Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959)
Beatitudes VI (Consciousness)
signed and dated 'Stanley/Spencer/1937.' (lower right) and inscribed 'Consciousness' (on the reverse)
pencil, squared for transfer
20 5/8 x 17 in. (52.4 x 43.2 cm.)

Provenance

with Zwemmer Gallery, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 6 June 2002, lot 143A.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 10 June 2005, lot 75, where purchased by the present owner.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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André Zlattinger

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Lot Essay

The present work is a study for one of the works in Spencer's sexually explicit series, The Beatitudes of Love which he painted between September 1937 and October 1938 whilst living on his own, having been rejected by both Hilda and Patricia. In this series Spencer explored the relationships between imaginary couples, giving them fictional characters, names and occupations, and accompanying the works with long and erotic accounts of their sexual activities. In Consciousness he invented 'cowman and wife', commenting that their distorted figures reflect that they have so much to express and so much to say to each other (see K. Bell, Stanley Spencer A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, pp. 146-147, 459).

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