page_title: Stanley Spencer
section_title: Port Glasgow, 1939–1945
hierarchical_section_title: Stanley Spencer / Port Glasgow, 1939–1945
caption_attribution_description: English: A sculpture commemorating the years that Stanley Spencer spent as a war artist in the Port Glasgow shipyards which stood here, The site is now a retail park.
context_page_description: Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE RA was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Spencer referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven" and in his biblical scenes, fellow-villagers are shown as their Gospel counterparts. Spencer was skilled at organising multi-figure compositions such as in his large paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Shipbuilding on the Clyde series, the former being a First World War memorial while the latter was a commission for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second World War.
  As his career progressed Spencer often produced landscapes for commercial necessity and the intensity of his early visionary years diminished somewhat while elements of eccentricity came more to the fore. Although his compositions became more claustrophobic and his use of colour less vivid he maintained an attention to detail in his paintings akin to that of the Pre-Raphaelites. Spencer's works often express his fervent if unconventional Christian faith.
context_section_description: Since late in 1938, Spencer's agent, Dudley Tooth had been managing Spencer's finances and when the Second World War broke out he wrote to E.M.O'R. Dickey, the secretary of the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, seeking employment for Spencer. In May 1940 WAAC sent Spencer to the Lithgows Shipyard in Port Glasgow on the River Clyde to depict the civilians at work there. Spencer became fascinated by what he saw and sent WAAC proposals for a scheme involving up to sixty-four canvases displayed on all four sides of a room. WAAC agreed to a more modest series of up to eleven canvases, some of which would be up to six metres long. The first two of these, Burners and Caulkers were completed by the end of August 1940. WAAC purchased the three parts of Burners, but not Caulkers, for £300 and requested a further painting, Welders, for balance. Spencer delivered Welders in March 1941 and in May 1941 saw the two paintings hanging together for the first time at the WAAC exhibition in the National Gallery. WAAC held Spencer in the highest regard, and in particular Dickey ensured he received, almost, all the expenses and materials he requested and even accepted his refusal to fill-in any forms or sign a contract.
  Between trips to Port Glasgow, Spencer was renting a room in Epsom, to be near Carline and his children, but the landlady there disliked him and he wanted to move back to Cookham and work on the paintings in his old studio but he could not afford to rent it from Preece, so WAAC agreed further financial help for that purpose. In May 1942, Spencer delivered Template, followed by twelve portraits of Clydesiders in October 1942. By June 1943 Spencer was having problems with the composition of the next painting in the series, Bending the Keel plate and considered abandoning it. Although he was not entirely happy with the painting, WAAC purchased it in October 1943 for 150 guineas. About this time, the owner of the shipyard, James Lithgow, complained to WAAC about Spencer's portrayal of his shipyard. WAAC duly commissioned Henry Rushbury to go to Port Glasgow and produce some rather more conventional views of shipbuilding for Lithgow. Spencer made further visits to Glasgow and by June 1944 had completed Riggers and begun work on Plumbers. After WAAC had purchased these two paintings, they did not have enough funds to authorise the completion of the entire original scheme of paintings. By the time WAAC was wound up, money had been made available for one further picture, The Furnaces, which would become the central piece of the scheme. After the war, when the WAAC collection of artworks was dispersed to different museums, the complete Shipbuilding on the Clyde series was offered to the National Maritime Museum who refused to accept the pictures and they were given to the Imperial War Museum instead.
  In November 2006, the Imperial War Museum asked Sir Alex Ferguson, whose father, brother and an uncle were working in the yards while Spencer was there, to lead a campaign to fund restoration of Spencer's paintings of the Port Glasgow's shipyards.
  The Riverside Museum, Glasgow, now displays Spencer's shipyard paintings as a biannual rotation of works on loan from the Imperial War Museum. In 1982 sections from two of the eight panels were used as the artwork, on five different sleeves, for the single "Shipbuilding" by Robert Wyatt. Four of the sleeves featured two different sections each from "Riggers" and "Riveters", which folded out into four-page leporello pictures.
  In 2014 on the site of the former Kingston Shipyard in Port Glasgow, which is now a retail park, a memorial in plate steel was erected to Spencer.
  In 1945 Spencer returned to live in Cookham in a house called Cliveden View, which had once belonged to his brother Percy.
caption: The Port Glasgow Memorial
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