maps for D-Day. In December 1944 during World War II, Spender was staying at the Hotel Gruenwalder in Innsbruck, Austria as part of his reconnaissance work with the Royal Army Service Corps. On 17 December, Spender encountered Heinrich Himmler, the notorious head of the Nazi SS who had arrived at the hotel unannounced armed with a team of soldiers. Himmler was seated at a table when Spender walking past, was asked to approach him and speak in German. Because of his mother's German-Jewish ancestry and his time spent in Germany, Spender luckily was conversant in the language and quietly left the hotel unnoticed. Otherwise it would have meant certain death for him because of his background. Spender also recounted a time he heard Adolf Hitler speak at a public gathering in Berlin in 1939. He said his voice was "very powerful and commanding". In about 1955 he abandoned photography for painting and textile design, and taught at the Royal College of Art from 1953 until he retired in 1975. In 1968, Spender moved to Maldon, Essex, where he lived at The Studio, Ulting. This was the first built design by architect Richard Rogers. Marriages Spender's first wife, Margaret Low, with whom he adopted a son, died in 1945. His second wife, Pauline Wynn, with whom he had a son, died in 2003. He then married the photographer Rachel Hewitt, who was more than fifty years younger. Spender had told his wives before marrying them that he was bisexual, like his brother Stephen Spender, and he had affairs with both men and women throughout his life, including Frederick Ashton and Eslanda Goode Robeson.<ref>Times obituary], 15 March 2005</ref> ReferencesHumphrey Spender: Artist whose photographs of the working classes became regarded as an invaluable historical record, obituary in Daily Telegraph'' (London, England) 15 March 2005, from [http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=SPN.SP00 Humphrey Spender at Newspapers Online Gale (accessed 22 August 2007) External links British Army Officers 1939–1945 Humphrey Spender at friendsandrelations.com Photographs taken by Humphrey Spender for the Mass-Observation project in Bolton 1910 births University of Freiburg alumni 2005 deaths People educated at Gresham's School People from Kensington Photographers from London 20th-century English painters English male painters 21st-century English painters Bisexual artists British people of German-Jewish descent History of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton Bisexual men British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Service Corps officers English LGBT artists LGBT photographers LGBT painters 20th-century LGBT people