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In May 1940, during one of the
darkest hours of the 20th century,

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an artist arrived at Port Glasgow
on the River Clyde.

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His name was Stanley Spencer.

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Over the next six years,

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he forged one of the greatest cycles
of paintings in British art.

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A portrait of industry, war,

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and the inextinguishable
human spirit.

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I'm Lachlan Goudie,
and I'm also an artist.

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For several years I've been drawing
and painting in the Clyde shipyards.

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Stanley Spencer's paintings have
been a huge inspiration to me,

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but I've always wondered why
such a quintessentially English

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artist was drawn to the
subject of Scottish shipbuilding.

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What did he find here that provoked
such a radical series of canvases?

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To find out, I'll be talking to
Spencer's shipyard gave.

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The man was so tied up
in sketching and art

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and painting, that that came
before anything else in his life.

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I'll uncover the early sketches
which inspired these

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monumental canvasses.

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This is a beautiful drawing.
Yes, and we're lucky to have it

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because of course he gave away
a lot of his portraits to people.

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And by exploring the world
of Spencer's paintings,

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I hope to better understand
the revelation that awaited him

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beyond the gates of the shipyard.

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Stanley Spencer left wartime
England

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in search of hope,
love and redemption.

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And he would find them all here,
by the Clyde.

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Any river is
a place of constant change.

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But on the Clyde
change has been dramatic.

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BAE Systems in Govan where I work
as an artist is one of the last

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places on the river where
ships are still built.

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But just upstream at the
Riverside Museum

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you can still catch a glimpse
of history.

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This painting - Burners -
was created by Stanley Spencer

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in August 1940,
whilst the Battle of Britain raged.

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But it depicts an unexpected
struggle -

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the men whose mission it was
to tailor a ship from steel.

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And this world, these people -
they still exist.

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I recognise them along with
Spencer's tumbling perspectives,

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from the hours I've spent
gazing down from the gantries
in Govan shipyard.

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But whereas I'm intrigued by
engineering spectacle,

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what's crucial for Spencer
is the human element.

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People dominated his paintings
and his creative philosophy.

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Spencer's yearning to explore
the human heart of a place

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had its source in another community,
another river -

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Cookham by the Thames.

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Stanley was born in this small
village in 1891.

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He spent his childhood summers
bathing in the Thames
with his brothers.

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And as he grew older, those early
memories of happy innocence

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were sanctified in his mind.

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Recollection and reality
became blurred.

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In his imagination, Cookham was
transformed into an earthly
paradise.

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"Resurrection: Cookham,"
completed in 1927.

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Never has England looked
more like God's own country.

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It's a painted Hallelujah,
a blossoming vision that celebrates

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the promise of resurrection.

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But instead of halos and angels'
wings, Stanley brings together

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family and friends as
the naked and the dead.

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From the suffocating subsoil
of Cookham graveyard,

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he elicits a flowering
of wonder and joy.

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But of course Spencer was no
stranger to death.

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He had served as a medical orderly
during the World War I

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and later wrote,
"I buried so many people,

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"I felt that death could not
be the end of everything."

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No-one, however, least of all
Stanley, could have known

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how many graves were awaiting
as a new war engulfed Europe.

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Spencer was 48 when the German
panzers rolled into Poland,

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too old to be called up.

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But he was eager to offer his
services to the new government body
charged with commissioningwar art.

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Spencer's first proposal reflected
his religious preoccupations -

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a large allegorical crucifixion
representing the suffering of
Poland.

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But the War Artist's Advisory
Committee

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had a very different subject in mind
for the visionary from Cookham.

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In the spring of 1940, Stanley
Spencer,

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the artist of peace, domesticity and
spiritual contemplation,

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was sent to paint a picture of
shipbuilding.

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# When days are burdened
With sorrow...#

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The shipyards of the Clyde weren't
exactly a pretty picture.

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But with the nation desperately
reliant on supplies

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shipped from overseas,
they were now on the front line.

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And the government wanted an artist
to record their vital work.

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Spencer's destination
was Port Glasgow.

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This small riverside town was once
the thumping heart of British
shipbuilding.

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And this was once the site
of Lithgow's Shipyard.

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Today you have to imagine the steel
hulls careering through the aisles
of baked beans and PotNoodles.

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But during World War II, more
merchant tonnage was launched from
here than anywhere else inBritain.

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When Stanley Spencer arrived
in Port Glasgow in May 1940

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he was understandably nervous -
well out of his comfort zone.

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To help him find his bearings he was
introduced to a shipyard chaperone.

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John Dodds was a foreman welder
at the Lithgow's Kingston yard

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when he was given the job of looking
after the disorientated artist.

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What was it like working there
as a welder?

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Very rough. Very rough.

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You were working out in the open
at all times

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and you were expected to do that
unless the weather became

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absolutely inclement
and it was impossible to work.

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But Stanley was not dressed
for that sort of thing.

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And you felt to a certain extent
a little bit sorry for him.

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He just had the barest
pair of trousers

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and a jacket on and a shirt.

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His footwear was absolutely pathetic!

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You know, we were wearing
at that time boots.

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But Stanley had on a pair of shoes

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that we would have worn
going to a dance!

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But he seemed to put up with that.

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The man was so tied up in
sketching and art and painting that

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that came before anything else
in his life.

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And tell me, did those other men
that he observed working...

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What did they think about Stanley?

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Did they think he was unusual
in any way or...?

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Well, the most I ever heard anyone
saying is, "He's a strange person."

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He wasn't what you would say
talkative.

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He didn't sort of break into
conversation.

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He was just a quiet, really nice man.

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To give you an instance of that,
about ten o'clock what we had

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in Port Glasgow was a morning roll
with some butter or margarine
on it,

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or jam if it was possible.

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But the hardest job was to get him
taking some butter or margarine

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because that actually came from
rations

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and he felt as if
he was using your rations there.

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The point was, the man was
so considerate

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you couldn't be otherwise
than take to him.

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Behind the unassuming appearance
was a fiercely determined artist.

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Spencer immediately
got down to work.

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To begin with, it must have been
a bewildering experience.

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As I've discovered, the labyrinthine
world of the shipyard

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is difficult to summarise
in a sketchbook.

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Compressing all this complexity onto
one sheet of paper is a challenge.

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But by sketching, you begin to
understand the structures more
clearly.

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And Spencer was an exquisite
draughtsman. He was forensic

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in gathering up all the precise
details of this strange, new
environment.

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Many of the studies Spencer
produced at Lithgow's yard

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are held at the
Imperial War Museum in London.

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We have over 150 of these drawings.

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And there are a whole range of them.

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This one is a really
interesting example

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because it's an architectural study
of the inside of a ship.

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I'm sure a bit like what you've been
looking at recently in the
shipyards.

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It's wonderful also the sheer
complexity of what

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he is managing to compress in here.

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Yes, he was strongly interested
in the technique

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of Renaissance painters.

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So observational drawing,
draughtsmanship,

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was very important for the way
he was making work.

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You can see some of that legacy
in his portrait drawings

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of some of the workers in
the shipyard.

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This is a beautiful drawing.

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Yes, and we're lucky to have it,

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because of course he gave away
a lot of his portraits to people.

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At the same as he's doing this
lovely moulding.

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Lots of lovely shading.

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Shading, yes, exactly.
His mind's always elsewhere.

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He's thinking of the final thing

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and here's a compositional
study for "Welders".

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This is dated May 1940,
one of his first visits

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and he's already
thinking of compositions.

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Absolutely.
He was thinking big from the start.

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So his head is in all different
kinds of places, he's doing

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very careful technical studies,
portraits and also quick sketches.

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Yes. He's working very fast here,

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and trying to get the shapes
with people moving.

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And in this one here, which bears
similar traits of very speedy

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note-making, what's happening here?

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He's patched the drawings together
so he's starting to think about

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how can these different
scenes come together?

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You kind of get a real
insight into the way he's thinking

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and the way he produces his art
work.

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I love the way he's been drawing
away and he thinks,

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"God, I can't fit these guys in here

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"so I need to stick on another
sheet of paper."

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Yes, you can get a bit of the
excitement and the energy through
this drawing.

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It was very loud, very noisy,

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there would have been
a lot of movement going on.

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A shipyard's not an easy studio
to have. No, I can imagine.

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It wasn't just the clamour
and commotion

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that made it difficult to capture
the life of the shipyard.

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High quality drawing paper
was in short supply during the war.

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The ever-resourceful Spencer,
though,

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came up with an ingenious
solution.

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He swapped sketchbooks for toilet
rolls.

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Good waxy, wartime stuff.

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This allowed him to record the
activity of the shipyard
in one continuous outline.

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But it also provided him
with a great party piece -

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no doubt he enjoyed the crowds
that swarmed around him

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as he unfurled his
cyclorama of lavvy paper.

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For Stanley Spencer there was an
earthiness and honesty

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about Port Glasgow
that he instinctively responded to.

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This community, bound by close ties
of family and friendship, was deeply
familiar.

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It reminded him of Cookham.

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But this was a place that still
bore the scars of the Depression

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when 11 out of 12 men
were unemployed.

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For any other artist, tough,
industrial Port Glasgow

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would have seemed like
the wilderness.

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But the truth was that Spencer
already knew what the real
wilderness felt like.

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For most of Spencer's life,

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Cookham had been his creative
and emotional fulcrum.

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His life and art all hinged on
this village by the Thames.

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"Resurrection: Cookham" commemorates
this, but it also celebrates

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the person who had unlocked his
happiness and spiritual philosophy.

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At the heart of the painting,
asleep amongst the ivy,

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is the figure of Hilda Carline.

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Stanley married Hilda -
a gifted artist in her own right -

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in 1925 while he was in the midst
of painting his masterpiece.

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But Stanley Spencer's very
English Eden

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was about to be visited by
temptation.

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One afternoon,
sitting in a local tearoom,

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Stanley Spencer looked up to find
an unexpected vision before him.

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Her name was Patricia Preece.

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Preece was a young artist who had
come to live in Cookham.

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Spencer was entranced.

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Over the next eight years,
he was gripped

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by an intense sexual obsession.

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His marriage to Hilda
crumbled and in 1937 they divorced.

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Within days Stanley married
Patricia,

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but the union was never consummated

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and effectively collapsed
in a matter of weeks.

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Spencer had slipped his moorings.

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The paintings
lost their sense of direction

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and his dealer struggled to shift
the new canvasses.

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Emotionally adrift and deep in debt,

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Spencer fled Cookham,
his Eden no more.

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There were few people for whom
the onset of World War II

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was anything other than disastrous.

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But in many ways it was the war

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and the assignment to Port Glasgow
that saved Stanley.

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When the War Artists Committee
dispatched him into the North,

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they expected Spencer to return with
material for a canvas or two.

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But released from the emotional
chaos of life in England,

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inspiration began to
nudge at the artist.

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In his imagination there emerged
the idea for a project

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that was breathtaking in its
intensity and scale.

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In the archives of Tate Britain
in London

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there's a tantalising clue to
Spencer's growing ambition.

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00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,880
So this is one of Stanley Spencer's
notebooks from 1941.

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It's very fragile,
hence the gloves.

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00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:13,000
And on the inside cover is this
unremarkable looking sketch.

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00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:18,120
What it illustrates is an
extraordinary proposal -

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00:17:18,120 --> 00:17:23,160
68 separate panels inspired
by the trades of the shipyard.

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00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:28,400
You've got burners here. Riveters.
Platers, and on and on.

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00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:33,560
Paintings up to 15 feet in length,
hung in multiple tiers

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00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:36,560
across the walls of
a purpose-built space.

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00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:38,800
It's a cathedral for industry.

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00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,480
This is an awesome vision,
but Spencer didn't just dream it up.

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00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,320
Less than a decade earlier
he had decorated

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00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:58,400
the Sandham Memorial Chapel in the
Hampshire village of Burghclere.

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00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,040
Inspired by the layout of an
Italian Renaissance chapel,

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00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:07,960
it was an epic format for a personal
and poignant cycle

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00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:09,840
of paintings about the Great War.

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00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:16,800
Over on the left, you see a man
who's being cut out of the wire.

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All these things, which were
previously war themes,

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00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:23,560
are now having to behave
as the bringers

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00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:26,560
of the happy message of the
resurrection.

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00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:33,200
Spencer's commission on the Clyde
followed this ambitious template

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00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,080
and provoked an equally
life-affirming installation.

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00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,880
Like Burghclere, the shipbuilding
paintings would reveal

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00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:44,400
a very intimate experience
of overwhelming events.

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00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:50,280
A painting like Burners

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00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:54,320
isn't a portrayal of men
crushed by industry.

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00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:58,000
Nor is it a propagandist celebration
of robotic workers

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00:18:58,000 --> 00:18:59,240
powered by the state.

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00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,480
For me, these men appear
absorbed by their craft.

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00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:09,680
And although the reality of bombs
and destruction

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seems strangely absent,

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I think that Spencer manages to
draw out the ideals

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00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:18,040
for which war was fought -

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00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:23,000
community, self-worth,
freedom, love.

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00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:38,080
It's perhaps no surprise that
when Burners was exhibited

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00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:40,560
in the first
War Artist's Exhibition

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00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:44,680
at the National Gallery in London,
the response was ecstatic.

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00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:50,280
Spencer's industrial altarpiece

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00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:53,040
became one of the most popular
prints of World War II

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00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:56,320
and helped revive his reputation.

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00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:58,920
His patrons in government
wanted more.

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00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,120
It was a watershed moment,

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00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:06,840
because in spite of the unparalleled
contribution of industry

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00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:08,200
to British history,

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00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,560
until this point the number of
artists

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who had explored the subject on
canvas was shockingly small.

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00:20:16,120 --> 00:20:19,000
But in World War II,
the country's leading artists

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00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,480
were commissioned to paint
a vital and previously invisible,

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00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,520
"backstage Britain" -

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00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,400
shipyards, steel plants,
armament factories.

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00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:34,880
Spencer, though, couldn't help
but look

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00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,320
at the industrial landscape
differently.

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00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:45,360
Like most artists when confronted
with a subject on this scale,

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00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:46,920
I'm always looking upwards,

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00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:51,360
craning my neck in order to
capture the vast drama.

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00:20:51,360 --> 00:20:54,640
But Spencer instead looks
from side to side.

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00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:57,400
He gives us a long, close-cropped
storyboard.

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00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:05,360
Spencer's unusual horizontal format
was a compositional decision.

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00:21:05,360 --> 00:21:07,080
But it might also have been
influenced

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00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,360
by the circumstances
in which he worked.

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00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:14,120
He didn't actually create the
shipbuilding series in Port Glasgow.

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00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,160
Instead Spencer worked up his
pencil studies

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00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:22,440
in a series of lodging rooms
in the south of England.

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00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:25,880
Without the space for enormous
paintings,

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00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,560
he simply tacked narrow rolls of
canvas to the walls

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00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:30,960
and broke out the brushes.

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00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:37,040
Methodically he would work his
way across an image,

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00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,560
from one side to the other,

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00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:42,760
never blocking in the colours
all at once.

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00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:46,400
He would use very thin sable
brushes, feathering small marks

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00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:50,640
over the canvas, so that by applying
the pigment very thinly

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00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:55,680
you could create a dry and chalky,
resembling a Renaissance fresco.

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00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,400
You can even see here the canvas
coming through the paint.

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00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,480
It's an extraordinarily
retentive way to work.

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00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:07,720
But in many ways, it tells us all we
need know

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00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,200
about Spencer as a person -

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00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:14,080
cautious, obsessive, controlling.
Neurotic, perhaps.

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00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,400
But despite this fragile surface,

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00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,360
Spencer boldly evokes an intense
and claustrophobic world.

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00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:31,080
It's when he pulls back that
the work is less successful.

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00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,360
This lower canvas is the Template

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00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:39,880
and it's perhaps my least favourite
painting.

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00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:41,240
Instead of tight focus,

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00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:44,280
Spencer shows us the huge hull
of a ship

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00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:47,520
and a unique glimpse
of the river in the background.

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00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,400
But to me it all seems a
little bit unresolved,

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00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,240
and there's one detail
which may help explain why.

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00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,680
It's this mother
and her young child.

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00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:02,200
Wives and children weren't actually
allowed into the shipyard.

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00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:03,640
But this mother and her
infant

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00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:07,280
depicted at the heart of Spencer's
composition

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00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,680
could be a cipher for some
of the important people

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at the centre of his own world.

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00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,960
Despite his divorce from
Hilda Carline,

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00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:19,320
Spencer remained passionately
attached to her and their children.

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00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:22,800
But whilst he was trying to complete
the Template,

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00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,320
Hilda suffered a
psychological breakdown.

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00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,400
Stanley hurried to help attend to
her and his daughters.

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00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,480
After a period of emotional
upheaval,

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00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:38,280
Spencer eventually returned
to work on the Shipbuilding Series.

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00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,960
But the war artist was
becoming war-weary

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00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,840
and his original master plan
lost momentum.

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00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:52,080
In the end he produced only
eight out of the original scheme

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00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:53,760
for up to 68 paintings.

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00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,240
Creative and emotional tides

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00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,960
were pulling Spencer
in a different direction.

338
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,240
In 1944, while on one of his
sketching visits to Port Glasgow,

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00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:15,320
Spencer met Charlotte Murray,

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00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,160
the German-born wife
of the high school art master.

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00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,680
Spencer and Murray were soon
involved

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00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,840
in an intense physical
and intellectual relationship.

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00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,120
A psycho-analyst and student
of Jung,

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00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:32,560
Murray encouraged Spencer to revisit
the spiritual idealism

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00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:34,040
of his pre-war work.

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00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,720
As the war approached its end,

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00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,320
the artist was ready
for a new epiphany.

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00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,400
The story is that one evening,
at his Port Glasgow lodgings,

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00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,080
the landlady's son began to practise
on his new drum kit.

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00:24:52,360 --> 00:24:55,880
Spencer escaped outside and wandered
the streets of the town.

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00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,040
After a little while he emerged
at the hillside cemetery.

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00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:12,400
"It was," he wrote later,

353
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,720
"like arriving at an idea before
I was ready for it."

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00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:24,000
Port Glasgow Resurrection wasn't
part of the war art commission,

355
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,040
but in many ways it's an
alternative centrepiece

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00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:28,600
for the Shipbuilding cycle.

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00:25:32,120 --> 00:25:34,920
Completed by Spencer in 1950,

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00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,760
it welcomes on stage the loved ones
from outside the shipyards.

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00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,640
It's a great orgy of joy,

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00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,920
now possible in a world
resurrected from war.

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00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,040
And there amongst the crowds
bursting from the earth

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00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,720
are some familiar faces -

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00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,320
Charlotte Murray, being helped out
of a grave...

364
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,600
..and at the centre of the
painting,

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00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:06,000
a kneeling representation
of Stanley and Hilda.

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00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,840
Between 1944 and 1950,

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00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,440
Spencer worked on a series of
nine celebratory visions

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00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:22,640
of Port Glasgow cemetery.

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00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,520
In many ways they brought him
full circle,

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00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:29,760
revisiting the rapturous,
transcendent scenes

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00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:31,640
that had defined his early career.

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00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,920
But, for me, his wartime
shipbuilding paintings

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00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:42,200
are unsurpassed.

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00:26:44,120 --> 00:26:46,240
They are the canvasses
we should celebrate.

375
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,440
They are Spencer's hymn to
Port Glasgow,

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00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:56,520
its people and to the industry that
revived his creative passion.

377
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,600
The Govan yard where I paint is
one of the last on the River Clyde.

378
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:18,000
Spencer wouldn't recognise this
industrial panorama any more,

379
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,560
so much has changed and is changing.

380
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,240
Even the last of the cranes,
those proud landmarks,

381
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:30,720
are now being demolished.

382
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,840
But if we were to take one final
stroll around the yard together,

383
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,160
the human landscape would be
entirely familiar to him.

384
00:27:44,360 --> 00:27:48,200
The figures, the faces,
the trades being undertaken,

385
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,280
the devotion, the community -

386
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,200
all of that still survives.

387
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:01,160
Spencer came to believe that even
during the most difficult times,

388
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:05,200
art could always throw light
into our wilderness.

389
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:07,680
And, from the moment he was secure
in that faith,

390
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,840
he declared, "Every tomorrow has
seemed as the world to come."

391
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:14,520
In the shipyards of Port Glasgow,

392
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:18,360
when all the world was loaded
with tragedy and pessimism,

393
00:28:18,360 --> 00:28:21,160
Spencer didn't just ignore the
darkness.

394
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,760
He simply painted for people
a vision of "Tomorrow"

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00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,360
that they could all fight for,
believe in and build together.