The lost Spencer Landscape.

The lost Spencer painting.

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The year was 1934 and summertime I remember when Uncle Stanley as I knew him arrived on the bridge at Widbrook and set up his easel to paint one of his landscape pot boilers. From my cottage garden I could see him at work and being my nosey self, I went up to watch him at work. Of course he knew who I was as he had seen me many times when he use to visit my Aunt Amy Field for a Sunday afternoon tea.

I remember he explained from his preliminary sketch how he worked from the distance and gradually moved into the foreground with his painting. It is strange how I remember this, and even applied it to my water colour art.

The composition of the photo above is my recollection of the finished painting, though there were leaves on his willow trees, plus a few bulrushes in the foreground, though the stream was always fairly clear as it was well maintained by the Thames Conservancy. They cleaned the weeds out manually every two years, and then they would bring in a drag line bucket every four years to remove any excess silt build up.

It was natural playground with a home built raft and my friends from the farm use to play our version of "Swallows and Amazons."

The guilt frame is my addition to this lost work. It is strange how Dudley Tooth lost track of this landscape. My only hope is that someone sees this Blog and can inform the Spencer Gallery in Cookham of its whereabouts.