The New Hope Artists Colony: Robert Spencer, Style

"Repairing the Bridge" by Robert Spencer

"From 1906 through about 1910, Robert Spencer lived in towns in close proximity to the Delaware River, such as Frenchtown, New Jersey, and subsequently Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania. But about 1906 he began to depict local tenements along the Delaware Canal. Although the artist had already arrived at the subject matter he would become noted for, the work lacked the draftsmanship and penetrating mood of his later work.

In the summer of 1909, Spencer studied painting with Daniel Garber, although Garber was one year younger. Spencer lived with Garber at Garber's home and studio in the wooded glen of Cuttalossa Creek at Lumberville. Of all of Spencer's painting instructors, none had so great an influence as Garber, in particular his meticulous draftsmanship. Spencer incorporated this quality into his highly individual style.

Eugen Heuhaus gave this description of Spencer's look:

'Homely subjects under his hand become appealing and interesting to an unusual degree. His technical means are well adapted to the surface variations of the dilapidated brick structures he so loves to paint. With a playful and nervous touch he creates charming and varied surfaces that attract and hold one's attention like a beautiful embroidery. His color is personal and most distinguished; beautiful ranges of warm and cold grays, violets, blues and reds harmoniously blend together the many different objects which he includes in one canvas, as the atmospheric truthfulness of his work is a proof of his fine sense of observation as well as his power to create fine color harmonies of very subtle quality.'

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Pennsylvania Impressionists" by Thomas Folk.)