Summary description
Oil painting on canvas, Washing Lockers by Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE, RA (Cookham 1891– Cliveden 1959), 1929. A bathroom at Beaufort Hospital. The lockers were wooden shelving units that were used at the bedside of the patients to keep their possessions, and are depicted submerged in the magenta wash house baths with orderly’s cleaning them. Spencer, as seen here, used to hide himself between the baths in order to escape tiresome duties or simply to work alone undisturbed. Spencer wrote at the time of Sister Hunter, a strict ward sister who demanded he searched rigorously for dust both under and inside the lockers. An early version of this was included in ‘Scrubbing the Floor and Soldiers Washing, Beaufort Hospital’.
Provenance
Given with the chapel by John Louis Behrend (1881- 1972) and Mary Sandham Behrend (1884 - 1977), 1947
Makers and roles
Sir Stanley Spencer, CBE, RA (Cookham 1891– Cliveden 1959), artist
Exhibition history
Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War, Somerset House, London, 2013 - 2015, no.17
References
Bell 1992 Keith Bell, Stanley Spencer, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Phaidon Press, London 1992, p.422
Carline 1978 Richard Carline. Stanley Spencer at War, London, Faber and Faber, 1978, p.182
Stanley Spencer (ed. Keith Bell), Royal Academy of Arts, London with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980, p.112
Behrend 1965 George Behrend, Stanley Spencer at Burghclere, London, MacDonald, 1965, p.37
Pople 1991 Kenneth Pople, Stanley Spencer: A Biography, Harper Collins London, 1991, p.96-97,122, 258-9
Gough 2006 Paul Gough, Stanley Spencer: Journey to Burghclere, Samson & Company, Bristol, 2006, p.128-129
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