Robert Spencer Art
American, 1879-1931
Biography from Anderson Galleries
Photo of Robert Spencer Robert Spencer was born in 1879 in Nebraska, the son of a Swedenborgian minister. After studying medicine briefly, he decided to become an artist and moved to New York City, where he enrolled at the National Academy of Design. Later he studied with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri at the New York School of Art. He moved to New Hope, Bucks County in 1906, and studied privately with the well-known Bucks County painter Daniel Garber.
It was at the home of painter William L. Lathrop that Spencer met his future wife, Margaret Fulton, herself an accomplished architect. For the next 25 years Spencer lived and worked in Bucks County, becoming one of the most prominent members of the Pennsylvania Impressionist art colony. He suffered several nervous breakdowns in the 1920s, and in 1931 took his own life.
Spencer became one of the most visible artists in the New York art world in the teens. His first success came in 1914, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased one of his major early canvases, "Repairing the Bridge". The celebrated collector Duncan Phillips then took an interest in Spencer's work, eventually purchasing eight of Spencer's canvases, currently housed in the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. The two men became friends, and Phillips appointed Spencer to the Committee on Scope and Plan of the new gallery then being created by Phillips. After Spencer's death, Phillips praised Spencer as "a rebel always against the standardized and stereotyped in art." Phillips believed that "there [was] no other painter, not John Sloan or Edward Hopper, more pungently American in expression."
Spencer also has work in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Carnegie Institute, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. In 1915, he won a gold medal at the prestigious Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Stylistically, Spencer differed radically from most of his Pennsylvania Impressionist colleagues. Probably influenced by Henri and the Ashcan School, Spencer made his reputation with skillful, evocative renderings of the everyday life of his community, often depicting the mills, tenements, and factories of New Hope and surrounding areas. "A landscape without a building or a figure, " he said, " is a very lonely picture to me."
Later Spencer painted more fanciful European scenes, many of which he did from his imagination, since he did not actually travel to Europe until 1925. Spencer's painting "Mountebanks and Thieves" won a prize at the 1926 Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh, and juror Pierre Bonnard said, "Mr. Spencer . . . is in the full vigor of his talent which is great. His art does not resemble European art, a rare fact in America."to
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Courtyard at Noon
By Robert Spencer
Located in New York, NY
Robert Spencer paints a sun-drenched scene of figures moving about outside red clay buildings in his work entitled, “Courtyard at Noon.”
Category
1910s Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$110,000
"The Auction"
By Robert Spencer
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by:
Robert Spencer (1879 - 1931)
One of the rarest and most important artists among the New Hope School, Robert Spencer was bor...
Category
1910s American Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"The Gray House"
By Robert Spencer
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by:
Robert Spencer (1879 - 1931)
One of the rarest and most important artists among the New Hope School, Robert Spencer was bo...
Category
1910s American Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Pat's House"
By Robert Spencer
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by:
Robert Spencer (1879 - 1931)
One of the rarest and most important artists among the New Hope School, Robert Spencer was bor...
Category
20th Century Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Note of the City"
By Robert Spencer
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork.
Signed lower right
Period frame
Robert Spencer (1879 - 1931)
One of the rarest and most important artists among the New Hope...
Category
20th Century American Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"The Gray Bridge"
By Robert Spencer
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by:
Robert Spencer (1879 - 1931)
One of the rarest and most important artists among the New Hope School, Robert Spencer was bor...
Category
1920s American Impressionist Robert Spencer Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
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Robert Spencer art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Spencer art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Spencer in canvas, fabric, oil paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Robert Spencer art, so small editions measuring 24 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Wilson Henry Irvine, Arthur Clifton Goodwin, and Henry Bayley Snell. Robert Spencer art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $12,000 and tops out at $231,250, while the average work can sell for $61,875.