Ghosting (Stanley and Daphne): A series of nine drawings

‘Ghosting (Stanley and Daphne)’ is a series of nine drawings that were initiated in response to the painting ‘Priory Farm, Leonard Stanley’ (1941) by Sir Stanley Spencer held in the ING Collection, London. Taylor’s studio is located in Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire, with Priory Farm in the immediate vicinity. The painting in the ING collection prompted Taylor to return to a long-considered project, to explore something of the pictorial engagement of Spencer with this place and its people; to identify some of the elements of his paintings and drawings that refer to the village and to ‘read’ his experience of living there as an artist.

The ‘ghosts’ of Stanley and Daphne (Charlton) in Leonard Stanley are manifested through oral recollections, the odd visitor with bundles of letters found in lofts providing insights and the strength of his visualisations used in many pictures. While in Leonard Stanley, Spencer charted his affair with Daphne, produced the first of the ‘Scrapbooks’ in the Astor collection, painted ‘The Burners’, the first of the large-scale ‘Shipbuilders on the Clyde’ paintings and made inventions and observations of life in the village and its villagers. Through reinterpretation of a number of sources, including oral recollections, Spencer’s drawings and paintings, descriptions of drawings unseen and diaries published in ‘Stanley Spencer Letters and Writings’ (Glew, Tate 2001) Taylor made a sequence of works that ghosted the imaginings and activities of Spencer and Charlton into Leonard Stanley.

Six of the series were exhibited in ‘Re:INVENTING’ (ISBN: 0-948327-22-7), ING Collection, London and the National Maritime Museum, London; eight were shown in ‘A mon seul desir, reveries & other series’, National Art School Galleries, Sydney, Australia, and in ‘Looking Forward: Thirty Contemporary British Artists’, Agnew’s, London. Reproduced in catalogues for all three shows with commentary by Taylor and/or Nicholas Usherwood.