Humphrey Spender (1910-2005)

Works
Biography
John Banting, Portrait of Humphrey Spender, c. 1934, Collection of the National Portrait Gallery
John Banting, Portrait of Humphrey Spender, c. 1934, Collection of the National Portrait Gallery

Humphrey Spender (1910-2005) was a British artist, designer, and photographer. Spender had initially studied architecture in London but in 1933, he set up a photographic studio. After two years working at the Daily Mirror under the name Lensman, he photographed in Bolton for the Mass-Observation movement (an independent body aiming to record the reality of daily life in Britain), and then served as an Official War Photographer in WWII. Following on from the War, Spender shifted away from photography towards art and design and went on to become a successful textile designer and painter as well as a tutor at the Royal College of Art (1953-1975).

 

There are twenty-three Humphrey Spender artworks held in public collections, including the National Galleries of Scotland, National Portrait Gallery, London and the Imperial War Museum, London. His paintings express fine technical detail and his subjects embraced social history, surrealism and abstraction.