Stanley Spencer: Prophetic Visions

This event is part of the Faith and the Arts series at St Peter’s Eastern Hill. Read more about the series here.

Presented by Dr Claire Renkin, Yarra Theological Union, University of Divinity

Stanley Spencer (1891 – 1959) is one of the most celebrated and idiosyncratic English painters of the 20th century. Born in Cookham on the Thames, Spencer rarely worked outside his village and its vicinity. Scripture and Christian revelation inspired him above all, as he depicted people and places of his home in a visual language all his own. Working alone, almost defiantly, he crafted paintings full of passion and energy that catch not just a sense of life now, but what lies behind it: he evokes something greater than all of us. Thoroughly anti-urban and anti-elitist, he rooted his art in his local community, full of eccentric neighbours and wounded villagers who exude a perverse joy. His own life was not easy, but by deploying muted colours and distorted shapes he manages to evoke redemption beyond suffering, goodness at the heart of humanity. Always struggling, Stanley Spencer stares deeply into our world, creating a prophetic vision of ourselves in all our brokenness, yet held in a greater love