Stanley Spencer Gallery

About

Current Exhibition - Our summer exhibition, open 3 April - 1 November 2025, will take a deep dive into Stanley Spencer’s last, great imaginative painting, Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta. This enormous and ambitious painting was his main focus for the last ten years of his life. In characteristic fashion, Spencer turned his childhood memories of the golden era Cookham Regatta into an event of great spiritual significance. Spencer explained, ‘Everything to do with love is meant in this Regatta scene. In that marvellous atmosphere nothing can go wrong.’ Sadly, Spencer died before he was able to finish painting it, but its unfinished state gives us a rare insight into his working methods. The exhibition will display Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta alongside Spencer’s working materials, preparatory studies and related paintings, including the loans of Dinner on the Hotel Lawn (Tate) and Edward Gregory’s oil study for Boulter’s Lock (National Museums Liverpool).

At a glance

• Typical visit: about 1 hour 30 minutes