Our Collection
Head of a Girl (1933)

Spencer was not a frequent traveller, but he made two trips to Switzerland in the 1930s, both at the expense of a major patron at the time, the businessman and financier Sir Edward Beddington-Behrens. The agreement was for Beddington-Behrens to buy all Spencer’s paintings of Switzerland. Responding to hints in Spencer’s conversation in 1933, Beddington-Behrens invited Patricia Preece (later Spencer’s second wife) to join them in Saas Fee and in 1935 he paid for Stanley and Patricia to visit Zermatt. The work’s provenance and the appearance of the sitter indicate that this may be one of the Swiss drawings. Although Spencer produced some half dozen landscapes and a large figure painting set in Switzerland, it failed to take root in his imagination and feelings to the same extent as Cookham, Macedonia or Port Glasgow.