Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
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>
Resurrection Cookham
Presented by Lord Duveen 1927
adults
architecture
artist, painter
arts and entertainment
Berkshire
Bible: New Testament
Bible: Old Testament
black
Carline, Hilda
Carline, Richard
Christ
church
Cookham - non-specific
England
England, South East
England, Southern
ethnicity
figure
God
gravestone / tomb
graveyard
ivy
Judaeo-Christian imagery
lily
Moses
named individuals
objects
people
places
plants and flowers
poppy
portraits
prophet
religion and belief
religious
religious and ceremonial
resurrection
River Thames
rose
self-portraits
Slesser, Henry
Spencer, Hilda
Spencer, Stanley, ‘Cookham’
townscapes / man-made features
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
universal religious imagery
work and occupations
<p>As a devout Christian, Spencer believed in a joyful day of resurrection. Everyone would be raised from the dead to receive judgement or glory. Here he depicts this taking place in the churchyard of Cookham, the Berkshire village where he lived. God and Christ watch as people emerge from their graves. Most of the white people are local friends or specific biblical figures. By contrast, Spencer represents the group of Black people at the centre of the painting in a generalising way. They are not based on people he knew, but on images he saw in <span>National Geographic </span>magazine.</p><p><em>Gallery label, December 2022</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
30 August 2004 – 13 August 2007
2007-08-13
30 August 2004
2004-08-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-08-30
On England
Collection based display
1 September 2011 – 31 January 2012
2012-01-31
1 September 2011 – 31 January 2012
2012-01-31
2011-09-01
Kunsthal Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
2011-09-01
Stanley Spencer
Loan-out
30 November 2012 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
30 November 2012
2012-11-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-30
Gallery 3
Collection based display
The Resurrection, Cookham
support: 2743 × 5486 mm
Presented by Lord Duveen 1927
<div class="text">
<p>As a devout Christian, Spencer believed in a joyful day of resurrection. Everyone would be raised from the dead to receive judgement or glory. Here he depicts this taking place in the churchyard of Cookham, the Berkshire village where he lived. God and Christ watch as people emerge from their graves. Most of the white people are local friends or specific biblical figures. By contrast, Spencer represents the group of Black people at the centre of the painting in a generalising way. They are not based on people he knew, but on images he saw in <i>National Geographic </i>magazine.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2022-12-16T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N04239</b> THE RESURRECTION, COOKHAM 1923–7</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not inscribed.
<br/>Canvas, 108×216 (274×549).
<br/>Presented by Lord Duveen 1927.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Purchased by the Duveen Paintings Fund Committee from the artist through the Goupil Gallery 1927.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> Goupil Gallery, February 1927 (54), as ‘The Resurrection’; Tate Gallery, November–December 1955 (25).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> <i>Connoisseur</i>, LXXVII, 1927, pp.250–1; <i>ibid.</i>, LXXVIII, 1927, pp.98–101, 185–6; <i>Drawing and Design,</i> II, 1927, p.105, repr. p.115; Johnson, 1932, pp.331–2; Chamot, 1937, p.74; <i>Studio</i>, CXXVI, 1943, p.50, repr. p.51; Rothenstein, 1945, p.14, repr. pls.21–4; John Rothenstein, <i>Modern English Painters: Lewis to Moore</i>, 1956, pp.181–2; Spencer, 1961, pp.172, 174–6; Collis, 1962, pp.77, 80–9, 91, 143, 162, 193, 243.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> R. H. Wilenski, <i>The Modern Movement in Art</i>, 1927, pl.4; Newton, 1947, pl.9 (in colour).</p>
<p>The setting is Cookham churchyard with the Thames in the background. God the Father and Christ with the little children are seen under the porch in the centre; several ‘thinkers’, including Moses, are near by. Both black and white people have been included to make the treatment as universal as possible. The artist is seen reclining on a tombstone in the bottom right-hand corner, and again, naked, head in profile to the right, close to the porch. His wife Hilda is in the overgrown grave in the foreground; she also appears smelling a flower on the left; in the distance she is seen a third time climbing a stile which leads to the River of Life. The figure rising from the flowered grave in the foreground is a memory of Sir Henry Slesser in his judge's wig. The bad emerge from their graves with some difficulty and are shepherded into the corner of their tombs. To the left people read the inscription on their own tombstones and help each other to spruce up. The impression is one of great peace and joy. The artist thought the picture might serve as an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/altarpiece" title="Glossary definition for 'Altarpiece'"><span>altarpiece</span></a>.</p>
<p>A detailed <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> for the above <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> (probably that exhibited at the Goupil Gallery, 1927 (20), as ‘Original Composition for the Resurrection’, bought by Lady Sybil Smith) was made while staying with Henry Lamb at Poole in 1922–3, and 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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> itself was executed in Henry Lamb's studio in London (3 Vale Hotel, Vale of Health, Hampstead). The date of completion is usually given as 1926, but the artist thought that he was still working on it at the beginning of 1927. Certain ideas for ‘The Resurrection: Cookham’ were fore-shadowed by the pair of paintings ‘The Resurrection of the Good and Bad’ completed in 1913, of which the artist wrote (1949, see exh. cat., Tate Gallery, 1955, Nos.9 and 10): ‘I love the Revelations and all it says but when I did the first biggish paintings of “The Resurrection”, in 1913, the punishment of the Bad was to be no more than that their coming out of the graves was not so easy as in the case of the Good.’</p>
<p>A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> and wash study of negroes for <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/spencer-the-resurrection-cookham-n04239" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04239</span></a> was lent by Mrs Basil Gray to the Arts Council exhibition, 1955 (30). An oil sketch of the pleasure boat in the top left-hand corner belongs to Sir Henry Slesser.</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
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture artist, painter arts and entertainment Berkshire Bible: New Testament Bible: Old Testament black Carline, Hilda Carline, Richard Christ church Cookham - non-specific England England, South East England, Southern ethnicity figure God gravestone / tomb graveyard ivy Judaeo-Christian imagery lily Moses named individuals objects people places plants and flowers poppy portraits prophet religion and belief religious religious and ceremonial resurrection River Thames rose self-portraits Slesser, Henry Spencer, Hilda Spencer, Stanley, ‘Cookham’ townscapes / man-made features UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features universal religious imagery work and occupations