The Stanley Spencer Gallery is located in Cookham, the idyllic ‘village in heaven’ where Spencer was born and spent most of his life painting. The structure was converted into a magnificent modern art museum in 1962, and now houses the world’s largest collection of Spencer paintings, drawings, personal letters, photographs, press cuttings, and books. Born in Cookham, he was a truly unique student at the Slade, studying alongside Paul Nash, Dora Carrington, and Christopher Nevinson, among others. Spencer’s work has been credited with influencing mid-century painters such as Hockney, Freud, Bacon, and, more recently, Emin…. David Bowie was a collector of Spencer’s work, and Billy Connolly is a fan.
Faith Gibbon, a young artist whom Spencer had befriended, was using the former chapel as a studio after his death in 1959. She invited the Stanley Spencer Memorial Trust’s steering committee to visit her, and it was decided that the ideal location for The Stanley Spencer Gallery had been found. A simple conversion was carried out, with the side windows blocked in to provide more hanging space and a new floor, doors, and lights installed. The building was completely refurbished in 2006/7, thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, at a cost of over £800,000, and reopened on September 29, 2007, creating a modern, light space that best displays Spencer’s works. In a sympathetic renovation, a mezzanine floor was added, and new state-of-the-art equipment was installed, reclaiming the building’s simple beauty that Stanley Spencer so admired.
