Spencer Stanley

Born on 30 June 1891: Stanley Spencer, Berkshire British painter and draftsman who died on 14 December 1959. One of his teachers was Henry Tonks.

Spencer received his first formal training in 1907 at the Maidenhead Technical Institute, Berkshire. A year later he enrolled at the Slade School, London, where, as a day student, he remained until 1912. In that year his painting The Nativity was awarded both the Melville Nettleship and the Composition prize. It shows the wide range of his early influences, from 15th-century Renaissance painting to the Pre-Raphaelites and Post-Impressionism