Garsington Roofs (alt. title: Garsington)

This is one of Spencer’s most widely exhibited paintings, representing the artist at the British Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg, 1936; ‘British Painting since Whistler’, the prestigious inaugural temporary exhibition at the National Gallery, London in 1940 (106); Spencer’s retrospective at the Fine Art Society in 1974 (13); and posthumously at the Royal Academy in 1979 (76), among others. It was painted while Spencer was part of the circle of artists and other creative figures around Sir Philip and Lady Ottoline Morrell at Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire, and was purchased by the important patron, Sir Edward Marsh.

Date: 1924
Inscriptions: lr: G.SPENCER 1924
Tags: Landscape, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 470
Width (mm): 620
Location: Private collection
Exhibition History: Whitechapel Art Gallery, Contemporary British Art 24 October-1 December 1929 (273) as 'Garsington'; Liverpool Art Gallery 1933; Oldham Art Gallery 1935; British Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg, 1936; Glasgow, 1938; British Painting Since Whistler, National Gallery 1940 (106) as 'Garsington'; FAS 1974 (13), illus B&W; RA 1979 (76)
Provenance: Sir Edward Marsh in 1940; FAS in 1974; Bonhams 11 March 2014 lot 204
Literature: Fleuron 1926 pl. 13; Spencer 1974 repr pl 2a as 'Garsington'; Gough 2024 p. 139, illus. pp. 134-5