Group of African Sculptures

The present work, which was never realised as an oil painting, relates to Love Among the Nations, 1935-6 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), where Spencer depicts the grouping together of many figures of differing ages, races and sexes. The central figures are robed, similar to those in Spencer's 1934 work The Turkish Widow (private collection). Spencer also produced sketchbook drawings of the casts in the Antique Room at the Slade and of Casts being carried at the Technical School in Maidenhead (C. leder, Scrapbook Drawings of Stanleys, London, 1964, pls. 48 and 59), and similarites can be seen here in his treatment of the sculptured figures at the upper left and right of the canvas.