Patricia Preece
English artist (1894-1966)
Patricia Preece, Lady Spencer (22 January 1894 – 19 May 1966), born Ruby Vivian Preece, also known as Peggy, was an English artist, associated with the Bloomsbury Group, and the second wife of painter Stanley Spencer, for whom she modelled. It was later discovered that nearly all of the artwork exhibited and sold by Preece was painted by her lifelong lover, Dorothy Hepworth.
As a teenager, in 1911, Preece was involved in the death of dramatist W. S. Gilbert. 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 became engaged, but her progressive views displeased her fiancé, who terminated their engagement. In 1918 Preece met Hepworth at the Slade School of Fine Art. After further studies in Paris, the two returned to Britain. 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 caused the artist Augustus John to declare Preece one of the six greatest women artists in England.
In 1928, Preece and Hepworth moved to Cookham and befriended the artist Stanley Spencer.
“Patricia Preece” enters the record as english artist (1894-1966). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Patricia, Preece and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7059288. VIAF identifies the subject as 171867780. The Library of Congress control number is no2011093659. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1966, 1911 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Patricia Preece” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.