SPENCE, PERCY (1868-1933)

“Fairy Frolics” (c.1920)
Mixed media
59.5 x 42cm
Signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Spence spent his youth in Fiji where his father held a government position. In 1888 he moved to Sydney & became illustrator to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Illustrated Sydney News & The Bulletin & exhibited at the Royal Art Society. Spence moved to London in 1894, where illustrations by him appeared in Punch, Black & White, the Graphic, & other well-known publications of the time. Spence had two pictures in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1899 & 3 more in following years. In 1901 he was responsible for the illustrations to Britain's Austral Empire, mostly portraits of the leading Australian politicians of that period. In 1905 Spence was back in Sydney and held a one-man show of his work, & in 1910 he provided 75 illustrations for the volume Australia, in Black's colour series. They show Spence to have been an artist of ability and variety. In 1914 Spence completed a large commissioned painting, 'H. M. Australian Fleet arriving at Sydney Heads', & returned to London to arrange for its presentation to King George V; this & another work are now in Buckingham Palace. During WWI, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, after which he lived and worked in London until his death.