.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The scene on the right relates to On the Landing or Looking at a Drawing (see K. Bell, Stanley Spencer A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, p. 129). This work forms part of the 'Domestic Scenes' series, painted in 1935-6 (other paintings in this series include: Choosing a Dress, At the Chest of Drawers, The Nursery, Going to Bed, Buttoning the Collar). The theme of these works is a nostalgic series of autobiographical domestic scenes depicting married life to Hilda at Chapel View, Burghclere.
Bell comments on these works, 'Compositionally, paintings such as On the Landing or At the Chest of Drawers show Spencer's use of a new structural device; with the two central figures ... balanced and interlocking, symbolizing the inseparability of their love for one another ... Spencer literally tries to make Hilda 'fit' him; and her exaggerated size, looming above him, indicates her importance in his life, both as a domestic and a sexual partner' (ibid, p. 138).
The central scene closely resembles Couple Drawing Each Other (see C. Leder, Stanley Spencer: The Astor Collection, London, 1976, p. 43, illustrated). This work is in volume one of four large scrapbooks which Spencer filled between 1939 and 1949. 'The drawings form a visual diary, not in the sense of recording his life on a daily basis, but in celebrating the essential quality of events in it ... Spencer himself appears in many of the drawings, in a world of real or transcendal domesticity ...' (ibid, p.9).
Bell comments on these works, 'Compositionally, paintings such as On the Landing or At the Chest of Drawers show Spencer's use of a new structural device; with the two central figures ... balanced and interlocking, symbolizing the inseparability of their love for one another ... Spencer literally tries to make Hilda 'fit' him; and her exaggerated size, looming above him, indicates her importance in his life, both as a domestic and a sexual partner' (ibid, p. 138).
The central scene closely resembles Couple Drawing Each Other (see C. Leder, Stanley Spencer: The Astor Collection, London, 1976, p. 43, illustrated). This work is in volume one of four large scrapbooks which Spencer filled between 1939 and 1949. 'The drawings form a visual diary, not in the sense of recording his life on a daily basis, but in celebrating the essential quality of events in it ... Spencer himself appears in many of the drawings, in a world of real or transcendal domesticity ...' (ibid, p.9).