Spencer Frederick Gore

Spencer Frederick Gore (26 May 1878 – 25 March 1914) was a British painter of landscapes, music-hall scenes and interiors, usually with single figures. He was the first president of the Camden Town Group, and was influenced by the Post-Impressionists.

He was born on 26 May 1878 at Epsom in Surrey, the youngest of the four children of the Wimbledon tennis champion, Spencer Gore and his wife Amy Margaret (nee Smith). His father's brother was the theologian Charles Gore. His father sent him to board at Harrow School in London. He went on to study painting in London at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he was a contemporary of Harold Gilman.

Painting career

In 1904 Albert Rutherston introduced him to Walter Sickert at Dieppe; and afterwards he associated in Fitzroy Street, London, with Sickert, Lucien Pissarro, Harold Gilman and Charles Ginner. In 1909 he became a member of the New English Art Club, and in 1910 contributed an article to The Art News on 'The Third London Salon of the Allied Artists Association'.

In 1911 he was a co-founder and first president of the Camden Town Group.

In January 1912 he married Mary Joanna ("Molly") Kerr, with whom he had two children - Margaret Elizabeth (1912-1994) and Frederick John Pym (1913-2009); the latter would become well known as the painter Frederick Gore. His widow died at Meopham, Kent in 1968.

In 1913 he became a member of the London Group.

His later works show growing concern with pictorial construction, under the influence of the Post-Impressionists. He experimented with colour in his works, as may be seen in his painting "Hartington Square".

He died of pneumonia at Richmond, Surrey, on 27 March 1914, aged thirty-six.