\paperw4695 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 British painter.\par
A pupil at the Slade School in London, where he studied from 1908 to 1912, Spencer took part in the second exhibition
of Post-Impressionists organized in 1912 by Roger Fry. From 1919 to 1927 he was a member of the New English Art Club. He fought in the war, serving in Macedonia, which proved a fundamental influence on the development of his painting. For a while he
abandoned representing scenes from the New Testament, set in modern and familiar surroundings, to paint large-scale works that were inspired by the horrors of war. These works included the decoration of the Sandham Memorial Chapel, in Burghclere, Hampsh
ire, painted between 1923 and 1932. In later years he returned to sacred subjects, tackling them with an energetic simplicity, and began to paint landscapes of his birthplace that transformed it into a heavenly Jerusalem. In 1930 he executed his \i Bea
titudes of Love\i0 , which was rejected by the Royal Academy, prompting his resignation. His visionary art, comparable with that of William Blake, is considered an extreme offshoot of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, although he deviated from the religious
ideas of the brotherhood into a sort of pan-sexual mysticism that was to characterize all of his works in the thirties, like \i Double Nude Portrait\i0 , (1936, Tate Gallery), London. The artist displayed works at the Venice Biennale in 1932 and 1937, a
nd the Tate Gallery devoted a major retrospective to his work in 1955, followed by one at the Royal Academy in 1980. The Tate Gallery now has a large collection of his work, illustrating every stage in his artistic development, from the \i Self-Portrait
\i0 of 1913 to the \i Lunch at the Lawn Hotel\i0 of 1956-57.
