This painting by Staley Spencer is of a fairground ride which, in my youth, was called a 'Chair-o-Plane'
I believe they are still around today, but in Spencer's time they were a new attraction.
"This was painted in Henry Lamb's studio at the top of the Vale Hotel, the Vale of Health, Hampstead.
The window of the studio overlooked the Hampstead fairground, and Spencer obviously found his imagery there.
The Hampstead fairground had been the inspiration for work by other artists such as Richard Carline and Mark Gertler.
The roundabout with chairs that Spencer chose to paint was a recent invention, only being introduced to fairgrounds in 1922."
(From the Tate display caption September 1999)
jollyweez
What a lot of work Spencer put into this. I think he did it with love. Perhaps because it was the latest innovation he would have loved were he still a boy. Instead, all he could do was put down every detail and each stroke of the brush held a happy thought. With the roundabout now rusted and forgotten, Spencer has captured it's freshness for all time.