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Painted just before the onset of the Second World War, this painting represents a calm before a storm.
The artist Gilbert Spencer trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and during his time there won the coveted life drawing prize in 1914. Whilst studying, he met Hilda Carline - who would become his brother’s wife - and her brother Sydney, who invited Spencer to join the teaching staff at Oxford. During the interwar years, Spencer spent much of his time in Oxfordshire and produced many of his best works.
An Oxfordshire connection is present in this autumnal landscape. The painting depicts a young girl, as yet unidentified, walking along a path in Garsington, Oxfordshire. Garsington Manor, near Oxford, was the home of the audacious society hostess and patron of the arts Lady Ottoline Morrell. She helped Spencer settle into the village of Garsington and played a critical role in introducing Spencer to the likeminded, artistic individuals who frequently visited...
Painted just before the onset of the Second World War, this painting represents a calm before a storm.
The artist Gilbert Spencer trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and during his time there won the coveted life drawing prize in 1914. Whilst studying, he met Hilda Carline - who would become his brother’s wife - and her brother Sydney, who invited Spencer to join the teaching staff at Oxford. During the interwar years, Spencer spent much of his time in Oxfordshire and produced many of his best works.
An Oxfordshire connection is present in this autumnal landscape. The painting depicts a young girl, as yet unidentified, walking along a path in Garsington, Oxfordshire. Garsington Manor, near Oxford, was the home of the audacious society hostess and patron of the arts Lady Ottoline Morrell. She helped Spencer settle into the village of Garsington and played a critical role in introducing Spencer to the likeminded, artistic individuals who frequently visited her house. Visitors to the old Oxfordshire manor house at Garsington were so welcomed by the owners, Ottoline and Philip Morrell, that some would stay for months on end. Artists, writers, poets and creatives such as W. J. Turner, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, William Butler Yeats, Virginia Wolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, David Garnett, Dora Carrington, Dorothy Brett, Ethel Sands and Siegfried Sassoon frequented Ottoline’s Oxfordshire home. In her memoir, Morrell described her home as ‘a theatre, where week after week a travelling company would arrive and play their parts ... How much they felt and saw of the beauty of the setting I never knew.’
Garsington is the setting of many of Spencer’s works. In this painting, the girl is depicted in Spencer’s characteristic style using bold lines and colours imbued with a warm light covering the English countryside. Spencer achieves a wistful atmosphere through his muted colours palette.
