THE TIMES
By Rachel Campbell-Johnston
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| Stanley Spencer painting Parents Resurrecting in 1933.
COURTESY OF THE STANLEY SPENCER GALLERY ARCHIVE |
You only have to glance up as you enter, and see the mural-scale picture that dominates the gallery, to know that you’re in the presence of a decidedly peculiar character. Stanley Spencer lifts Jesus Christ away from His usual biblical backdrop and plonks Him down in the middle of the Cookham boating regatta. There, crowned with a quaker’s broad-brimmed black hat, enthroned in a curved wicker chair of the sort that you might more normally find in a sunny conservatory, he preaches from his vantage point in a flat-bottomed punt. A gaggle of schoolchildren is his most immediate audience. [
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