Volume 2 of the Astor Collection 

From 1908-12, Spencer was at the Slade, the leading art school of the day, where he was one of the most notable students in a talented generation, winning a scholarship to cover the fees and two major prizes. He emerged as a young artist with a growing reputation. The formidable Professor Tonks trained Slade students to draw from the ‘antique’ and from ‘life’. His emphasis on the use of pencil for drawing and on the importance of form clarified by light and shadow rather than colour, made a lasting impression on Spencer, many of whose later portrait drawings display a mastery of academic procedure and an unmistakable Slade character.aried happenings’.