Patricia Preece - femme fatale of the English art scene
Patricia Preece was the second wife of painter Stanley Spencer, an English artist, fraud and social climber.
Born Ruby Preece in 1894, Patricia Preece was, as a teenage girl, involved in the death of dramatist W S Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). While swimming in his lake, she lost her footing and called out; the 74-year-old Gilbert dived in to assist her, but he died of a heart attack.
She soon adopted the name Patricia and went to the Slade School of Fine Art where, in 1918, she met Dorothy Hepworth - who became her lifelong companion. After further studies in Paris, funded by Hepworth's wealthy parents, the two returned to Britain.
The pair became involved with the Bloomsbury Group. They spent summer holidays in Wales or Cornwall where Preece was again rescued from drowning, this time by a local mineworker. Preece had a reputation for happily accepting casual flirtations from admirers, only to reject them when they became more serious.
Throughout their lives, the gregarious Preece exhibited and sold the shy Hepworth's paintings under her own name, while Preece painted very little herself. The fraud fooled many in the art world, including the artist Augustus John who declared Preece one of the six greatest women artists in England.
No one discovered this fraud during their lifetimes, but it did involve some quick thinking on Preece's part when admirers requested on-the-spot sketches.
In 1928, Preece and Hepworth moved to Cookham, living in a cottage purchased by Hepworth's parents, and befriended the artist Stanley Spencer.
Spencer became obsessed with the flirtatious Preece, and he showered her with gifts. She persuaded him to divorce his first wife and to sign his house over to her.
Preece married Spencer in 1937, but she did not leave Hepworth and refused to have sexual relations with Spencer. She eventually evicted Spencer from the house, and would not grant him a divorce, but continued to receive payments from him.
After he was knighted in 1959, she insisted on being styled Lady Spencer and claimed a pension as his widow. In later years, Preece traded in antiques.
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