in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1965. During the late 1960s, Spender frequently visited the University of Connecticut, which he declared had the 'most congenial teaching faculty' he had encountered in the United States. Spender was Professor of English at University College London from 1970 to 1977 and then became professor emeritus. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the 1962 Queen's Birthday Honours, and knighted in the 1983 Queen's Birthday Honours. At a ceremony commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1984, US President Ronald Reagan quoted from Spender's poem 'The Truly Great' in his remarks:Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your 'lives fought for life... and left the vivid air signed with your honor'. World of art Spender also had profound intellectual workings with the world of art, including Picasso. The artist Henry Moore did etchings and lithographs conceived to accompany the work of writers, including Charles Baudelaire and Spender. Moore's work in that regard also included illustrations of the literature of Dante, Gide and Shakespeare. The exhibition was held at The Henry Moore Foundation. Spender 'collected and befriended artists such as Arp, Auerbach, Bacon, Freud, Giacometti, Gorky, Guston, Hockney, Moore, Morandi, Picasso and others'. In The Worlds of Stephen Spender, the artist Frank Auerbach selected art work by those masters to accompany Spender's poems. Spender wrote China Diary with David Hockney in 1982, published by Thames and Hudson art publishers in London. The Soviet artist Wassily Kandinsky created an etching for Spender, Fraternity, in 1939. Personal life In 1933, Spender fell in love with Tony Hyndman, and they lived together from 1935 to 1936. In 1934, Spender had an affair with Muriel Gardiner. In a letter to Christopher Isherwood in September 1934, he wrote, 'I find boys much more attractive, in fact I am rather more than usually susceptible, but actually I find the actual sexual act with women more satisfactory, more terrible, more disgusting, and, in fact, more everything'. In December 1936, shortly after the end of his relationship with Hyndman, Spender fell in love with and married Inez Pearn after an engagement of only three weeks. The marriage broke down in 1939. In 1941, Spender married Natasha Litvin, a concert pianist. The marriage lasted until his death. Their