SPENDER
Humphrey (1910 - 2005)
"Study
for Reed Barrier"
Charcoal. Signed and dated 1960. 12 ½" x
16"
Exhibited
Redfern Gallery. With original exhibition label.
IMAGE
Humphrey Spender was a painter, pencil draughtsman, photographer,
architect, designer and mural painter and a teacher. He was born in London his full name being John
Humphrey Spender and was the brother of the poet Stephen Spender. He was a fellow of the Society of Industrial
Artists and Designers and an honorary designer at the Royal College of
Art. He attended Gresham's School, Holt, then in
1928 went to Freiburg in Breisgau (Schwarzwald) University, "for language (under
cover of history of art)". From
1928 – 34 Spender gained his diploma at the Architectural Association School of
Architecture. His teachers included
Howard Robertson. From 1935 to 1941 he
took a photographic studio, working for Picture Post, Mass Observation
and the Daily Mirror as Lensman (in 1987 a book of Lensman photographs
was published with Spender's introduction).
During the war, after a period in the Tank Corps, he was made War Office
Official Photographer which included photo-interpretation of V1 and V2 rocket
sites and D-Day invasion maps. After the
war he continued to paint and make documentary photographs. Between 1946 and
1956 he did varied freelance work, including textiles, carpets, wallpapers and
murals, winning the Council of Industrial Design awards four times, and between
1956 and 1976 he taught at the Royal College of Art textile school. As well as numerous mixed shows, Spender had
solo painting exhibitions including Redfern and Leicester Galleries, New Art
Centre and provincial venues. There were
also solo photographic exhibitions, including Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol,
retrospective, with tour, in 1982. Among Spender's widely varied commissions,
which included work for the Festival of Britain, British Rail and Shell
International, was the design of the Maldon Millenium Embroidery, which he
finished in 1990. The Victoria and
Albert Museum, the Ministry of Works and many provincial galleries hold
pictures by him.
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