Ink, graphite and watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-stanley-spencer-1977" aria-label="More by Sir Stanley Spencer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sir Stanley Spencer</a>
Apple Gatherers
Bequeathed by Sir Edward Marsh through the Contemporary Art Society 1954
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
agriculture and fishing
apple
architecture
arm / arms raised
basket
boy
carrying / holding
children
emotions, concepts and ideas
fertility
food and drink
fruit, apple
garden structures
girl
group
groups
harvesting
holding hands
ladder
man
objects
orchard
people
standing
tools and machinery
universal concepts
vessels and containers
woman
work and occupations
<p>This drawing was made at the Slade School of Art, on a subject Stanley Spencer had been set by one of his teachers. He interpreted it broadly, and later wrote 'I have in it wished to say what life was'.</p><p>An idealised family, including a huge number of children, gather food from nature. The linking of hands joins the separate groups of males and females; this separation and uniting is echoed throughout the severe design. The farm life is made to look like a Biblical scene.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique ink graphite watercolour
19 June 2002 – 6 October 2002
2002-10-06
19 June 2002 – 6 October 2002
2002-10-06
2002-06-19
Abbot Hall Art Gallery (Kendal, UK)
http://www.abbothall.org.uk
2002-06-19
Spencer
Tate partnerships & programmes
10 November 2003 – 5 July 2004
2004-07-05
10 November 2003
2003-11-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-11-10
Stanley Spencer
Collection based display
6 October 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
6 October 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
2007-10-06
Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent, Belgium)
http://www.gent.be/
2007-10-06
British Vision, Observation and Imagination in British Art, 1750 -1950
Loan-out
Study for ‘Apple Gatherers’
support: 276 × 321 mm
Bequeathed by Sir Edward Marsh through the <a href="/search?gid=999999975" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Contemporary Art Society</a> 1954
<p>This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> was made while Spencer was still a student at the Slade School of Art in London, to which he travelled each day from his family home in the Berkshire village of Cookham. 'Apple Gatherers' was a subject set by the Slade Sketch Club, and it is likely that this was the drawing for which Spencer was awarded its £25 prize. His teacher, Henry Tonks (1862-1937), had arranged for him to spend part of the 1911-12 Christmas holiday with an old Slade student near Taunton. The surrounding orchards must partly have been an inspiration. Spencer used the drawing as the basis for his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> <i>Apple Gatherers</i> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/spencer-apple-gatherers-n05663" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05663</span></a>), started in 1912, and the study is squared for transfer to <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>. The oil, Spencer wrote in 1939, 'was my first ambitious work and I have in it wished to say what life was'. He sought to give form to a pantheistic vision of the connections between man, woman, nature and fertility, writing in 1941:

</p><p></p><blockquote>
<p>The apples and the laurel and the grass can fulfil themselves through the presence in their midst: the husband and wife of all places and elements of the picture. The central two figures are still related in this universal sense, not this time so much through any specified religion but through a consciousness of all religions  The couple in the centre here seem not to need each other in any personal way or even be aware of each other. They seem only co-existent with each other like earth and water, yet it seems a vital relationship. (Tate Archive 733.2.85)<br/></p></blockquote>
<p>Spencer presents a timeless, golden-age scene of harmony, a rural idyll which is sacramental in its vision of harvest. In his mind Spencer connected the subject with Odney Common at Cookham, although there was no orchard there. He could see it from his nursery window. Perhaps this connection fuelled his ruminations on relations between the sexes and nature and his thoughts about his progression to adulthood.

</p><p>The study differs from the painting based on it; for the finished oil Spencer exaggerated the scale of the central figures and compressed them together to form a tighter <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>. In both works Spencer shows his delight in formal, geometric compositions - the strong diagonal of the line of males, the curve of the women; the horizontal of the principal woman's arm, and the more serpentine am of her partner. At this time Spencer admired the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/pre-raphaelite" title="Glossary definition for 'Pre-Raphaelite'"><span>Pre-Raphaelites</span></a>, and the male diagonal is reminiscent of the line of brothers in <i>Isabella</i> (1848-9, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) by John Everett Millais (1829-96).

</p><p><b>Further reading</b>:<br/>Timothy Hyman and Patrick Wright (eds.), <i>Stanley Spencer</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain 2001, no.8, reproduced in colour <br/><i>Stanley Spencer: A Sort of Heaven</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Liverpool 1992, p.27, reproduced<br/><i>Stanley Spencer RA</i>, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1980, no.14, reproduced

</p><p>Robert Upstone<br/>October 2001</p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text0">This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> was made at the Slade </span><span class="text13">School of Art, on a subject Stanley </span><span class="text0">Spencer      had been set by one of his teachers. He interpreted it broadly,  and later      wrote 'I have in it wished  to say what life was'. </span>
</div>
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text0">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text0">An idealised family, including a huge number of      children, gather food from nature. The linking of hands joins the </span><span class="text12">separate groups of males and females;</span><span class="text0"> this separation and uniting is echoed throughout the severe      design. The farm life is made to look like a Biblical scene. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-09-10T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N06233</b> STUDY FOR APPLE GATHERERS (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/spencer-apple-gatherers-n05663" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05663</span></a>) <i>c.</i> 1912</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not inscribed.
<br/>Pen, pencil and wash (squared up for painting), 10 7/8×12 5/8 (27·75×32).
<br/>Bequeathed by Sir Edward Marsh through the Contemporary Art Society 1954.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Probably acquired by Sir Edward Marsh direct from the artist.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> British Council, <i>Empire Exhibition</i>, Johannesburg, 1936 (703); Temple Newsam, Leeds, July–September 1947 (80); <i>The Collection of the late Sir Edward Marsh</i>, Leicester Galleries, May 1953 (4).</p>
<p>Probably the sketch done at the Slade School in 1912. This preliminary <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a>, while showing the same general disposition of figures as in the final oil <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>, was not followed exactly. The oil is a much more tightly compressed <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>: the figures fill the whole space and the two principal central figures even appear cramped within the painting. The male figure in the right foreground has his right arm bent round the basket, dipping his left instead of his right hand into it. The hands and arms of the foreground figures are seen in sharply diminishing <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/perspective" title="Glossary definition for 'Perspective'"><span>perspective</span></a>, and a barrel has been included in the centre between the three main groups.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults agriculture and fishing apple architecture arm / arms raised basket boy carrying / holding children emotions, concepts and ideas fertility food and drink fruit, apple garden structures girl group groups harvesting holding hands ladder man objects orchard people standing tools and machinery universal concepts vessels and containers woman work and occupations