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Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Reculver

SKU: 5789
Black and white photograph,
squared and numbered by the artist
8 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (21.5 x 16.5 cm.)
Presentation:
folio

Size:
Height – 21.5cm x Width – 16.5cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Simon Spear, the artist’s son

In 1946 Spear used this photograph to produce a print entitled Reculver Towers, the vantage point from which this view was taken.


Reculver is a village and coastal resort about 3 miles (5 km) east of Herne Bay in south-east England, in a ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent. It is about 30 miles (48 km) east by north of the county town of Maidstone, and about 58 miles (93 km) east by south from London. Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel, between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland. This led the Romans to build a small fort there at the time of their conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and, starting late in the 2nd century, they built a larger fort, or “castrum”, called Regulbium, which later was part of the chain of Saxon Shore forts. The military connection resumed in the Second World War, when Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs were tested in the sea off Reculver.
Sediments laid down around 55 million years ago are particularly well displayed in the cliffs at Reculver. Nearby Herne Bay is the type location for the Thanet Sand Formation, a fine-grained sand that can be clayey and glauconitic and is of Thanetian (late Paleocene) age. It rests unconformably on the Chalk Group, and forms the base of the cliffs in the Reculver and Herne Bay area.




Francis Howard Spear (1902-1979) was a printmaker and a stained glass artist who attended the Royal College of Art with Bawden, Ravilious in the mid 1920’s and later went onto teach at the School. The V&A holds examples of his stained glass and a number of designs for stained glass, and his coloured lithographic print Horse Race.

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THE ARTIST

Francis Spear
Francis
Spear
1902 - 1979

Francis Howard Spear was born on 22nd December 1902 in South Norwood, south London.

He attended the LCC School of Arts and Crafts (which became the Central School of Arts and Design), he successfully passed Parts 1 and 2 of the Board of Education’s Examination in Industrial Design, specialising in stained glass in 1923.
While studying at the Central School in 1922, he became pupil-assistant to Martin Travers, the leading English practitioner of stained glass.

Spear won a National Scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1923, with a chosen specialism stained glass.

Francis Spear is an important, though not now well-know, figure in twentieth century English stained glass. His working career covers 50 years, from 1922 when he began working with Martin Travers, to 1972, when he ceased teaching at Reigate School of Art. Spear taught John Piper lithography.

During his career, he designed some notable windows, and a short list would include his earliest window, at Warwick School (1925), St. Olave’s in the City (1929), Snaith (1936), Beckenham (1948), Canterbury (1949), Glasgow Cathedral (1951, 1953, 1958), Highbury (1955), Westgate (1960) and Penarth (1962).

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

SKU: 11425

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Stream and Haystacks, 1933

£475.00

SKU: 9209

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Abstract floral forms, circa 1960

£385.00

SKU: 9210

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Horse Race II, 1934

£1,900.00

SKU: 9211

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Horse Race, 1934

£1,800.00

SKU: 8956

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Man and woman playing croquet

£900.00

SKU: 8934

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Stream and Haystacks, 1933

£675.00

SKU: 8517

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Saint George; design for stain glass window

£500.00

SKU: 8501

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Armchair, circa 1930

£1,100.00

SKU: 8445

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Part Two of A King’s Lesson by William Morris, 23rd June 1919

£1,500.00

SKU: 8444

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

The Kings Lesson by William Morris, June 15th 1919

£1,500.00

SKU: 8442

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

The Kings Lesson by William Morris, part 1, april 26 1919

£2,000.00

SKU: 8032

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Brook farm, 1924

£425.00

SKU: 8033

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Self portrait, the artist observing himself in an oval mirror, circa 1925

£475.00

SKU: 8034

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Hats, early 1920

£225.00

SKU: 7935

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Christ the saviour

£600.00

SKU: 7936

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

St Nicholas & St Peter, Patron of Children

£775.00

SKU: 7913

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Girl with Eye’s Shut 1925

£525.00

SKU: 7915

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Girl with Eye’s Shut 1925

£400.00

SKU: 7063

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Design for glass stained window, early 1940’s

£800.00

SKU: 7056

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Martyr Soldier, 1941

£4,750.00

SKU: 7057

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

St. George and the Dragon, 1941

£6,750.00

SKU: 7059

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

For the further glory of God’s House, circa 1940

£1,100.00

SKU: 7053

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

St Mathew, St Mark, St Luke St. John

£850.00

SKU: 7054

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Christ Derided, Nov 1942

£5,750.00

SKU: 6334

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

The artist’s wife knitting, c 1929

£1,675.00

SKU: 5788

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

The Artist’s Boots, 1932

£1,850.00

SKU: 5758

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Discarded shoes, circa 1925

£475.00

SKU: 5750

Francis Spear (1902 - 1979)

Stream and Haystacks, 1933

£775.00