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The Summer Exhibition

Starts: 29 April 2009

Finishes: 1 November 2009

Location

Description

Spencer and the River Thames

The River Thames played an important part in Spencer’s love affair with his native village of Cookham on Thames in Berkshire.

His early life experiences in the idyllic river side village at the turn of the 20^th century played a major part in his creativity and genius as a painter.  As a boy he would roam the fields and river banks and be inspired: 

“I feel fresh awake and alive; this is the time for visitations. We swim and look at the bank over the rushes I swim right in the pathway of the sunlight.....and I am visited and walk about being in that visitation....”

2009 marks the 50^th anniversary of the artist’s death and the Gallery is delighted to return to those formative influences and his time in his village ‘Heaven’ with an exhibition of his major pictures inspired by the river.   

His most famous work ‘Swan Upping’  will be on loan from the Tate Gallery in London as will  ‘Dinner on the Hotel Lawn’ – an imagined scene where several of the important women in his life prepare to dine at a table on the old lawn of the Ferry Hotel in Cookham.  ‘Swan Upping’ is an important work which he started before leaving the village to serve in WW1 and which he completed on his return.   ‘The Bridge’, also on loan,  is a mysterious work which he also painted while still trying to come to terms with his war time experiences.

‘Turk’s Boat Yard’ will remind all who know Cookham of the splendour of the scene by Cookham Bridge and will compliment the Gallery’s own work ‘A View from Cookham Bridge’.  Also on show from the Gallery Collection will be ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta’ and various studies he made for this major work