Stanley Spencer Sir Stanley Spencer KCB CBE RA ( 30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959 ) was an English painter . Well known for his work depicting Biblical scenes , from miracle s to the Crucifixion and Resurrection , occurring as if in the small Thames - side village where he was born and spent much of his life , Spencer was also a war artist , acting in this official capacity in WWII . Furthermore , he was an accomplished landscape artist and portrait painter . Spencer referred to Cookham as " a village in Heaven . " In his biblical scenes , fellow - villagers are modeled as their Gospel counterparts , lending Christian teachings an eerie immediacy . Cookham houses the Stanley Spencer Gallery , whilst one of Spencer ' s famous large - scale works , commemorating events in WWI , is in the Sandham Memorial Chapel . Biography . Early life . Spencer was born and spent much of his life in Cookham in Berkshire . His father , William Spencer , was a music teacher . His younger brother , Gilbert Spencer ( 1892 – 1979 ) , was a painter of landscapes . From 1908 to 1912 , Spencer studied at the Slade School of Art at University College , London under Henry Tonks and others . His contemporaries at the Slade included Dora Carrington , Mark Gertler , Paul Nash , Edward Wadsworth , Isaac Rosenberg and David Bomberg . So profound was his attachment to the village of his birth that most days he would take the train back home in time for tea . It even became his nickname : his fellow student C . R . W . Nevinson dubbed him " Cookham " , a name which Spencer himself took to using for a time . War service . After a long period of agonizing whether or not to join up , in 1915 Spencer volunteered to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps and worked as an orderly at the Beaufort War Hospital ( which later became Glenside ) . In 1916 , the 24 - year - old Spencer volunteered for service with the RAMC in Macedonia , and served with the 68th Field Ambulance unit . He subsequently volunteered to be transferred to the Berkshire Regiment . His survival of the devastation and torment that killed so many of his fellows indelibly marked Spencer ' s attitude to life and death . Such preoccupations come through time and again in his religious works . Towards the end of the war he was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to paint what became " Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station at Smol , Macedonia , September 1916 " ( now in the Imperial War Museum ) . It was visibly the consequence of Spencer ' s experience in the medical corps . A further major commission was to paint murals for the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere dedicated to the war dead . The altarpiece depicts the " Resurrection of the Soldiers " . In 1939 , he went on a painting holiday at the suggestion of one of his friends , William Rothenstein , to Leonard Stanley in Gloucestershire . This holiday extended to two years ; Stanley stayed at the White Hart Inn and created many of his important works in his room above the bar which he used as a studio , including ' Us in Gloucestershire ' and ' The Wool Shop ' . Spencer ' s work as a war artist in the Second World War included his epic depiction of shipbuilding workers and their families at Port Glasgow on the Clyde . When the war ended he again took up , as did certain other British neo - romantic artists of the time , his visionary preoccupations — in Spencer ' s case with a sometimes apocalyptic tinge . Marriages and later years . In 1925 , Spencer married Hilda Carline , then a student at the Slade and sister of the artist Richard Carline . A daughter , Shirin , was born in November of that year and a second daughter , Unity , in 1930 . Spencer met the artist Patricia Preece in 1929 in Cookham . He became infatuated with her . Carline divorced Spencer in 1937 . A week later he married Preece , who persuaded him to sign over his house to her ; she , however , was a lesbian . She continued to live with her partner , Dorothy Hepworth , and though she frequently posed nude for her husband , she refused to consummate the marriage . When Spencer ’ s bizarre relationship with Preece finally fell apart ( though she would never grant a divorce ) , he would visit Hilda , an arrangement that continued throughout the latter ' s subsequent mental breakdown . Hilda died from cancer in November 1950 . < ref name = wives children < / ref > < / ref > The painful intricacies of this three - way relationship became the subject in 1996 of a play by the feminist playwright Pam Gems . Titled " Stanley " , it starred Anthony Sher , at the National Theatre and , later , on Broadway . Nominated for a Tony Award , it won the Olivier Best New Play award for 1997 . Spencer has been the subject of several biographies . The diminutive survivor of turmoil domestic and military is depicted in his later years as a " small man with twinkling eyes and shaggy grey hair , often wearing his pyjamas under his suit if it was cold . " He became a " familiar sight , wandering the lanes of Cookham pushing the old pram in which he carried his canvas and easel . " The pram , black and battered , has somehow survived , to become the most curious exhibit in the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham , which is dedicated to its owner ' s life and works . When a member of a British Council delegation to China not long before his death , Spencer is said to have introduced himself to Premier Zhou Enlai with the words , " Hello , I ' m Stanley from Cookham . " Spencer was knight ed in 1959 . He died of cancer at nearby Cliveden later that year . Art . Spencer has been described as an early modernist painter . His works often express his fervent if unconventional Christian faith . This is especially evident in the scenes that he envisioned and depicted in Cookham . Very evident in these too is the compassion that he felt for his fellow residents . His quirky romantic and sexual obsessions were also expressed within this home environment , but it is a mistake to regard him merely as some sort of quaint village innocent , inextricably tied to small - town England . His works originally provoked great shock and controversy . Nowadays , they still seem stylistic and experimental , whilst the nudes that arose through the futile relationship with Patricia Preece , such as the " Leg of mutton nude " , foreshadow some of the much later works of Lucian Freud , who expressed admiration for Spencer . Spencer ' s early work is regarded as a synthesis of French Post - Impressionism , exemplified for instance by Paul Gauguin , plus early Italian painting typified by Giotto . This was a conscious choice , and Spencer was a key member of a group who called themselves the " Neo - Primitives . " Allied with him were David Bomberg , William Roberts and other young contemporaries at the Slade . His most ambitious work was the consequence of his Great War experiences : a cycle of 19 wall paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel ( " see above " ) , which took five years to complete . During the Second World War , he was recruited by the War Artists ' Advisory Committee to help in the war effort by recording activities that were taking place on the home front . Spencer chose to paint Clyde shipbuilders at work ; when the war ended , he was in the process of planning a three - tier frieze 70 feet long representing their work . Today , works such as " The Resurrection , Cookham " ( 1923 – 27 ) , clearly set in the village and with actual residents taking part , rarely come up for auction , but when they do , they sell for immense sums . However , during Spencer ' s lifetime , it was his landscapes that were in demand . His dealer would press him to produce more , but Spencer expressed impatience , and professed that they were a chore . Nevertheless these landscapes of Cookham and its environs are still favored by many of the public . Spencer made only three lithographs , all under the guidance of Henry Trivick . Legacy . In November 2006 , the Imperial War Museum asked Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to lead a campaign to fund restoration of Spencer ' s paintings of Port Glasgow ' s shipyards in wartime and certain other works . Ferguson , whose father , brother and an uncle were working in the yards while the artist was there , took up the challenge . Spencer ' s house near Cookham Rise Primary school is still in private occupation . The village ' s Methodist Chapel where the artist worshipped is today the Stanley Spencer Gallery . It mounts two exhibitions a year and holds over 100 items of his work . Memorial . Spencer was cremated and his ashes laid in Cookham Churchyard , beside the path through to Bellrope Meadow . A discreet marble memorial marks the spot .