The Crucifixion
One of Spencer’s earliest oil paintings, completed while he was a student at the Slade School of Art. It may reflect his anxiety about the war, and the prospect of his enlistment. The features of Christ and the soldiers are unmistakably those of ‘Pa’ Spencer and his sons, though Gilbert claimed that the resemblance was unintentional. Three of Gilbert’s elder brothers had already enlisted, and his parents were keen to shield their younger two sons, though both would enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps soon after this painting was completed. It was purchased by Desmond Chute, a young Catholic intellectual who met the Spencer brothers while they were serving at the Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol.
Date: 1915
Inscriptions: G. Spencer on reverse and dated 1915
Tags: Biblical, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 864
Width (mm): 991
Frame height (mm): 1045
Frame width (mm): 1164
Location: Tate T01903
Exhibition History: NEAC 61st, January 1920 (17); Reading 1964 (4); 'The Slade Tradition', FAS, October–November 1971 (85); FAS 1974 (4, illus); Royal College of Art, 'Painters at the Royal College of Art', March -April 1988 (6); SSG 2024
Provenance: The Rev. Desmond Chute; Sotheby's, 15 December 1965; Lady McFadyean; Colin McFadyean; Christie's 20 March 1970 (27); Purchased by Tate from Fine Art Society 1974
Literature: Gilbert Spencer, Stanley Spencer, 1961, Foreword and p.121; Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer, 1962, pp.67–8; The Tate Gallery, 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978; Gough 2024 pp. 62-5 illus p. 64; Bradley Petitgas 2024 p. 19
Date: 1915
Inscriptions: G. Spencer on reverse and dated 1915
Tags: Biblical, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 864
Width (mm): 991
Frame height (mm): 1045
Frame width (mm): 1164
Location: Tate T01903
Exhibition History: NEAC 61st, January 1920 (17); Reading 1964 (4); 'The Slade Tradition', FAS, October–November 1971 (85); FAS 1974 (4, illus); Royal College of Art, 'Painters at the Royal College of Art', March -April 1988 (6); SSG 2024
Provenance: The Rev. Desmond Chute; Sotheby's, 15 December 1965; Lady McFadyean; Colin McFadyean; Christie's 20 March 1970 (27); Purchased by Tate from Fine Art Society 1974
Literature: Gilbert Spencer, Stanley Spencer, 1961, Foreword and p.121; Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer, 1962, pp.67–8; The Tate Gallery, 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978; Gough 2024 pp. 62-5 illus p. 64; Bradley Petitgas 2024 p. 19