The illustrated Friends: Stanley Spencer

Spencer was the reason why Adam Ant studied art - a huge inspiration to him. And, wonderfully, the two men's paths did cross, as Adam told BBC News earlier this year:

"I actually saw Stanley Spencer when I was about four," he said.

"I saw him coming over the bridge with his umbrella and his little pram. We thought he was the bogeyman and we hid."

I was going to hide too - Spencer never collaborated with a beat combo; didn't record an album of Christmas songs; never even created a tumblr with pictures of Jellyhead in it. He never even made it into A House's Endless Art.

Luckily, though, Ant isn't the only art school bopper inspired by Spencer. Luke Haines gives him a namecheck on English Southern Man:


[Part of the illustrated Friends]