Stanley Spencer`s Swan Upping returns to Cookham
(Artdaily.org)

The Stanley Spencer Gallery will present Painting by the Thames: Swan Upping at Cookham, opening November 7 2019. Built around one of the artist’s most celebrated works, Swan Upping at Cookham (1915 -1919), the exhibition brings together rarely seen paintings and drawings from the Gallery’s collection to reveal one of Spencer’s inspirations, the River Thames. The title work, which is on loan from the Tate, depicts the practice of ‘Swan Upping’, where mute swans are caught, marked and then released. Spencer was moved to capture this annual ceremony as he sat in Holy Trinity church at Cookham and heard the people of the village walking by on their way to the nearby river. The beautiful Berkshire village of his birth was his constant inspiration and much of his life was spent there. The artist was fascinated by the river for its beauty