Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959)

The present work is a study for one of the works in Spencer's sexually explicit series, The Beatitudes of Love which he painted between September 1937 and October 1938 whilst living on his own, having been rejected by both Hilda and Patricia. In this series Spencer explored the relationships between imaginary couples, giving them fictional characters, names and occupations, and accompanying the works with long and erotic accounts of their sexual activities. In Consciousness he invented 'cowman and wife', commenting that their distorted figures reflect that they have so much to express and so much to say to each other (see K. Bell, Stanley Spencer A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, pp. 146-147, 459).