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Details
- Date
- 1944
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 50.7 x 76.1 cm stretcher; 64.5 x 90.0 x 4.0 cm frame
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of the Contemporary Art Society, London 1944
- Location
- South Building, ground level, 20th-century galleries
- Accession number
- 7543
- Copyright
- © Estate of Sir Stanley Spencer/DACS. Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Stanley Spencer
Works in the collection
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About
Between 1940 and 1945 Stanley Spencer served as an official World War II war artist and was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to record shipbuilding at Lithgows Shipyard in Port Glasgow, Scotland.
'The scrapheap' is undoubtedly an offshoot of the shipyard paintings. Rich in pattern and detail, something Spencer became obsessed with in his later works, it confirms his ability to transform the everyday into something remarkable.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 8 exhibitions
Sir Stanley Spencer: Adelaide Festival of Arts 1966, National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Mar 1966–Mar 1966
Artist's Glue, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Emu Plains, 04 Mar 1985–30 Jun 1985
Canvassing the Clyde: Stanley Spencer and the Shipyards, Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, Glasgow, 29 Apr 1994–07 Aug 1994
Stanley Spencer: An English Vision, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 09 Oct 1997–04 Jan 1998
Stanley Spencer: An English Vision, Centro Cultural/ Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico, 19 Feb 1998–10 May 1998
Stanley Spencer: An English Vision, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, 08 Jun 1998–06 Sep 1998
Stanley Spencer, Tate Britain, England, 22 Mar 2001–24 Jun 2001
Modern Britain 1900-1960, NGV: International, Melbourne, 15 Nov 2007–24 Feb 2008
Stanley Spencer: a twentieth century British Master, Carrick Hill, Australia, 01 Aug 2016–04 Dec 2016
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 8 publications
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Keith Bell, Stanley Spencer - a complete catalogue of the paintings, London, 1992, 303 (colour illus.). cat.no. 317
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Renée Free, Art Gallery of New South Wales catalogue of British paintings, Sydney, 1987, 184 (illus.).
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Ted Gott, Laurie Benson and Sophie Matthiesson, Modern Britain 1900-1960, Melbourne, 2007, 166 (colour illus.), 167 (colour illus.). illustration on pg.167 is a detail
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Timothy Hyman, Stanley Spencer, 'Stanley Spencer: Angels and dirt', pg. 10-41, Millbank, 2001, 36, 54, 206, 220-221 (colour illus.). cat.no. 105
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Anne Kirker and Peter Tomory, British painting 1800–1990 in Australian and New Zealand public collections, Sydney, 1997, 163. cat.no. 2057
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Fiona MacCarthy, Stanley Spencer: an English vision, New Haven, 1997, (colour illus.). cat.no. 46
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Andrew Patrizio and Frank Little, Canvassing the Clyde: Stanley Spencer and the Shipyards, Glasgow, 1994, (colour illus.). plate 2
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Adelaide Festival of Arts 1966: special exhibitions at the National Gallery of South Australia, 'Sir Stanley Spencer', Adelaide, 1966. cat. no. 16
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Provenance
Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London/England, Purchased by the Contemporary Art Society, November 1944
Contemporary Art Society, London, London/England, Gift of the Contemporary Art Society, London 1944
