Giving the Servant Girl a Ride, 1929 (pencil on paper)

From Counterpoint Modern Realism 1910-1950. Elsie Munday joined the Spencer family as a maid in 1928 when they were living at Chapel View, Burghclere, while Spencer was working on his murals in the Sandham Memorial Chapel. She moved with them to Cookham in 1937. Elsie formed the subject of Spencer’s portrait Country Girl: Elsie (1929). He was extremely fond of her and intended to devote a separate chapel to her in his proposed ‘Church House’ designs, a never-realised decorative scheme devoted to love and life. In this drawing Spencer depicts himself giving Elsie a ride on his back, like a young child. It is a scene of unselfconscious playfulness, and one that ignores any social division between employer and employed. In the background, by the kitchen fire, Spencer’s wife Hilda lies naked in a tin bath.