Stanley Spencer: A Biography

In his first book, documentary filmmaker Pople celebrates the inner life of Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) by tying the British artist's paintings to the sensations that provoked them. Unfortunately, the resulting appreciation, which excerpts heavily from Spencer's writings, serves neither the man nor the art. Raised in the English countryside, Spencer--called both village simpleton and a ""real spiritual Artist"" by his contemporaries--painted realistic as well as visionary scenes. With Spencer's divorce from his first wife, Hilda, and his subsequent messy marriage to Patricia Preece (the subject of Pam Gems' current play Stanley), Spencer equated spirituality with carnal love. The drama this idea created in his two marriages adds some pace to a narrative that otherwise moves laboriously. Perhaps Pople has tried a little too hard to get into Spencer's mind; he often lapses into disjointed ""Stanley-talk"" (noting that the painting Silent Prayer was ""intended for the Hilda-chapel of his `church of me'""). No man exists in isolation, even one of Spencer's unorthodox views, but Pople, locked into his pursuit of what he terms Spencer's ""inner pageant,"" fails to connect the art with influences that swirled around the British modernists, nor does he provide an adequate context for Spencer's beliefs. If its size makes it something of an achievement, it is one that will appeal only to committed Spencer fans. Illustrated. (June)