Dorothy Hepworth (far left), Patricia Preece and Stanley Spencer (wearing spectacles) at his wedding

Dorothy Hepworth (far left), Patricia Preece and Stanley Spencer (wearing spectacles) at his wedding with Preece When Spencer made a return visit to Switzerland in 1935, Patricia Preece travelled with him and when they returned to Cookham, Spencer’s wife Hilda Carline moved to Hampstead. Preece began to manage Spencer’s finances and he signed the deeds of his house, Lindworth, over to her. Between the middle of 1935 and 1936 Spencer painted a series of nine pictures, known as the Domestic Scenes in which he recalled, or re-imagined, life with Hilda at home. Whilst Spencer was painting these, Hilda, as shown by her letters from the time, was growing increasingly despondant and hurt at Spencer’s fixation with Preece. Hilda finally started divorce proceedings and a decree absolute was issued in May 1937. A week later Spencer married Preece; she, however, was a lesbian and continued to live with her partner, Dorothy Hepworth, and refused to consummate the marriage. When Spencer’s bizarre relationship with Preece finally fell apart, though she would never grant him a divorce, he would visit Hilda, an arrangement that continued throughout the latter’s subsequent mental breakdown. Hilda died from cancer in November 1950. The painful intricacies of this three-way relationship became the subject in 1996 of a play, Stanley by the feminist playwright Pam Gems. -- source link

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