Spencer in sex shocker

If your eyes have glazed over at the thought of yet another Stanley Spencer blockbuster, unglaze them at once. Yes, all the usual shower of resurrections, regattas and street scenes in (yawn) Cookham are in Tate Britain's show, and, yes, all the stories of easels and prams and lesbian second wives are solemnly trundled out with a faint squeaking sound. But this show, nonetheless, centres itself on something new in Spencer studies, and that thing - brace yourselves - is sex.

No wide-eyed Berkshire boy, our Stanley. The Spencer who emerges from this exhibition is the painterly equivalent of DH Lawrence: so interested in the idea of free love that he designed a church to it - Church-House, recreated in the Tate courtesy of 3-D computer imaging - and painted many of his best known works as part of its decorative programme.

At the same time, the work (like Spencer's second marriage) seems oddly sexless. The more acutely we home in on the painter's genitalia or the stretch marks on his second wife's bosoms, the further away we seem to get from any real sense of intimacy. It's as though the whole thing is about looking rather than about seeing or as though the one precludes the other. This revelation suddenly makes sense of Spencer, although whether it makes him more likeable is another matter.

Until June 24, Tate Britain, Millbank SW1, daily 10am to 5pm, £8.50, £5.50 concs.
Tel: 020 7887 8000
www.tate.org.uk
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