A Cotswold Farm
The culmination of a decade of painting farms, this painting is Spencer’s most critically-acclaimed work. It was a product of his imagination, created without the use of studies or drawings from nature, though a pencil and sepia wash drawing, squared for transfer, was exhibited alongside the painting at the Goupil Gallery in 1932. Spencer described it as ‘a joy-in-doing kind of picture. True to my love of farm carts, I had to feel that everything in the picture worked.’ The carts that almost collide in the centre are considerably more individuated than the farm-workers, whose faces are turned away. The painting was purchased through the Chantrey Bequest.
Date: 1930-1
Inscriptions: lr: G Spencer
Tags: Landscape, Agricultural, Figures, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 1410
Width (mm): 1840
Location: Tate N04670
Exhibition History: Goupil Gallery, February 1932 (59); RA 1932 (603); Festival of Contemporary Art, The Pump Room, Bath, April 1935; USA touring exhibition inc. MFA Boston 1940; Reading 1964 (35); FAS 1974 (22); RA 1979 (74); Royal College of Art, London 'Painters at the Royal College of Art, March-April 1988 (7); SSG 'The Cookham Brotherhood' 2024
Provenance: Chantrey Bequest purchase from the artist through the Goupil Gallery, 1932
Literature: Repr: Studio, CIII, 1932, p.41 (in colour); The Times, 26 February 1932, illus.; Royal Academy Illustrated, 1932, p.112; The Listener 7:173, 4 May 1932, illus.; Rothenstein 1956, pp. 230–1, repr. pl.21.; Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II Spencer 1974 pp. 94, 101-6, rep. pl 2b; Gough 2024 pp. 2-3, 159-165, illus. pp. 160-1; Bradley Petitgas 2024 pp. 21-2
Date: 1930-1
Inscriptions: lr: G Spencer
Tags: Landscape, Agricultural, Figures, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 1410
Width (mm): 1840
Location: Tate N04670
Exhibition History: Goupil Gallery, February 1932 (59); RA 1932 (603); Festival of Contemporary Art, The Pump Room, Bath, April 1935; USA touring exhibition inc. MFA Boston 1940; Reading 1964 (35); FAS 1974 (22); RA 1979 (74); Royal College of Art, London 'Painters at the Royal College of Art, March-April 1988 (7); SSG 'The Cookham Brotherhood' 2024
Provenance: Chantrey Bequest purchase from the artist through the Goupil Gallery, 1932
Literature: Repr: Studio, CIII, 1932, p.41 (in colour); The Times, 26 February 1932, illus.; Royal Academy Illustrated, 1932, p.112; The Listener 7:173, 4 May 1932, illus.; Rothenstein 1956, pp. 230–1, repr. pl.21.; Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II Spencer 1974 pp. 94, 101-6, rep. pl 2b; Gough 2024 pp. 2-3, 159-165, illus. pp. 160-1; Bradley Petitgas 2024 pp. 21-2