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On Sunday 13 July, the Tempo Half Marathon will begin and end at Compton Verney.

Please note that we are still open to visitors on this day, however there will be a rolling road block in the morning, and the site may be busier than usual due to this event so please allow yourself more time to travel.

Stanley Spencer and the English Garden

25 June 2011 – 2 October 2011

About the
exhibition

Compton Verney’s unique blend of art expertise, Georgian architecture and breathtaking historic landscape made it the ideal setting for an important new exhibition on one of Britain’s best-loved artists: the eccentric, quintessentially English genius Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959). Stanley Spencer and the English Garden, will focus on Spencer’s gorgeous garden views and landscapes of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Spencer’s virtuoso treatment of this highly accessible and enormously attractive subject demonstrates the artist’s immense feeling for, and understanding of, the way the English landscape and the traditional English garden were changing during the twentieth century, and how contemporary building development was redefining or even eradicating familiar environments. They also chart his personal vision of the garden as a ‘private heaven’.

The exhibition was curated by Compton Verney’s Director, Dr Steven Parissien, and Dr Martin Postle, Academic Director of Yale University’s Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.