The Stanley Spencer Gallery is unique, being the only gallery in Britain devoted exclusively to an artist in the village where he was born and spent most of his life. Spencer was strongly influenced by the river and his religious beliefs, and the gallery occupies the former Victorian Methodist Chapel where Spencer was taken as a child to worship.

At the end of September 2007, a year after closing for an £800,000 total refurbishment, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire reopened to the public. The gallery opened in 1962 as a memorial to the artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) who was born and worked for much of his life in the village. He now has international stature and is widely recognised as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century.

Run entirely by volunteers, the gallery holds a fine collection of more than 120 works.

4 February – 4 November 2012: Stanley Spencer Gallery - 50th Anniversary Exhibition 'Spencer’s Earthly Paradise'

This exhibition is being held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham. The gallery opened on 7 April 1962, three years after the artist’s death. It is fitting it should be housed in the former Wesleyan chapel, where Spencer as a child worshipped with his mother.

In discussing the inspiration behind his work, the artist commented, ‘When I left the Slade and went back to Cookham I entered a kind of earthly paradise.’ This dual vision of the spiritual and the temporal was nourished by the village of his birth in which he spent much of his working life.

Winter Exhibition: 8 November 2012 – 24 March 2013.

The exhibition will continue with various alterations, for instance the return of some loans so as to enable the display of further works from the gallery’s collection.

Gallery Opening hours:

4 February - 31 March Thursday - Sunday 11.00am – 4.30pm
1 April – 4 November Daily 10.30am – 5.30pm
8 November – 24 March Thursday - Sunday 11.00am – 4.30pm

The gallery is open Bank Holidays but closed Christmas Day.