Gilbert Spencer was a British painter of landscapes, portraits, figure compositions and mural decorations. He worked in oils and watercolour and was highly skilled at composition and a close observer of rural life. Gilbert was the younger brother of the painter Stanley Spencer.
Born at Cookham, Berkshire, Gilbert Spencer was the eighth son and youngest of the eleven children of William Spencer, organist and music teacher, and his wife, Anna Caroline Slack. Along with his musical family, his formative influences included his childhood spent in observation of nature, the idiosyncrasies of late Victorian village life, making wooden models of farm carts, and his close relationship with his older brother Stanley. Gilbert’s formal education did not begin until he was sixteen when he was sent briefly to private school in Maidenhead before studying at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts and the Royal College of Art. Subsequently, Gilbert followed Stanley to the Slade School of Fine Art in 1913, remaining until 1915, under the tutelage of Henry Tonks whom remained a powerful influence until the end of his life.
During the First World War, after somewhat pacifist misgivings on the part of both themselves and their mother, both Stanley and Gilbert served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, initially at the Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol. Gilbert was then drafted to the Macedonian front, serving in Salonika and in the Eastern Mediterranean 1915–19. In 1919 he returned to his studies at The Slade and his talent quickly attracted attention.
He became a member of the New English Art Club in 1919. That year, he met Hilda Carline, his brother's future wife, and her brother Sydney Carline. When he became Ruskin School of Art Master in 1922, Sydney Carline asked Spencer to join his staff at the University of Oxford. Lady Ottoline Morrell, with whom Spencer was friendly since before the war, found him a room in the village of Garsington near Oxford. She allowed him easy access to her own house, Garsington Manor, which was frequented by many illustrious guests including the Bloomsbury set. While living there, Spencer painted ‘Trees at Garsington’, ‘Garsington Roofs’ and ‘The Sheep Fold at Upper Farm’. In 1923, he had his first solo exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, London.
After marrying and settling down in Berkshire with one of his former Ruskin pupils, Ursula Bradsha, Gilbert embarked on a distinguished career as an art teacher alongside his artistic practice, beginning as a Professor of painting in 1932 at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1948–50 he became the Head of the Department of Painting at Glasgow School of Art, and from 1950 to 1957, was Head of Painting at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. He was elected an Associate Royal Academician (A.R.A) in 1950 and a full member in 1959.
From 1934-6 he created a series of murals depicting the Foundation Legend of Balliol College for Holywell Manor, Oxford.
During the Second World War, Spencer served as an official war artist in the Home Guard, first in Basildon and then in Ambleside when the Royal College of Art relocated to the Queen’s Hotel (1939-45). The Imperial War Museum commissioned a number of pieces of work from him.
The artist was widely exhibited during his lifetime and examples of his work are held in major public and private collections, including the Tate Gallery and the Royal Academy.
