Stanley Spencer (Text Only) by Ken Pople

Description

Probably the greatest English painter of the twentieth century — and certainly its strangest. Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) set biblical scenes in his Berkshire village of Cookham, painted portraits of unnerving intensity, and filled canvases with an Englishness both visionary and deeply odd. His works hang in pride of place in Britain’s national collections — and Ken Pople’s acclaimed biography is the book that finally explains the man behind them.

Pople’s is the first biography to give a thoroughly convincing account of Spencer’s life and psyche: the genius, the obsessions, the two marriages, the conviction that Cookham was a kind of heaven. Written with the cooperation of those who knew him, it is as strange and thrilling as the paintings. Pople had the cooperation of Spencer’s family, and the resulting psychological portrait is unmatched.

Note: this is the text-only edition. Essential for British art lovers — the definitive Spencer.

Stanley Spencer (Text Only) is Ken Pople’s acclaimed biography of Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) — now widely recognized, by the public and art historians alike, as probably the greatest English painter of the twentieth century. His strange and thrilling settings of biblical and semi-biblical scenes, his grippingly realist portraits, and his intense English landscapes hang in pride of place in Britain’s national collections and fetch ever-escalating prices at auction.
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nAlthough many books have been written about Spencer, Pople’s is the first to give a thoroughly convincing and coherent account of the life and psyche of the man behind these extraordinary pictures. With the cooperation of Spencer’s daughters and remaining friends, and unrestricted access to the artist’s letters, diaries, and other writings, Pople spent ten years unraveling the familiar yet often impenetrable mysteries on the canvas.
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nHis analysis demonstrates that there was never an artist for whom life and art were so much of a piece — and that without understanding Spencer’s doings and circumstances, we have no hope of understanding his paintings. This text-only edition brings Pople’s landmark biography to e-book readers: an intimate, essential portrait of a uniquely English genius.