Eularia’s religious paintings are often described as being reminiscent of Stanley Spencer. Eularia greatly admired Spencer (she was taught by his brother Gilbert) but her paintings owe as much to the early Renaissance fresco painters, Giotto and Fra Angelico, as they do to Spencer and her images of Christ evoke the quality of Byzantine iconography in their stillness and consistency.
Her paintings are less refined and more primitive than Spencer’s. Eularia’s own flare for the dramatic shows in the emotions on the faces of her people. Her aim was to portray the Gospels in the here and now, to give them the immediacy that she felt they deserved, to bring them alive for people.
Eularia refused to sell her religious paintings, which is why she is not widely known today. The collection remained in the hands of her family and, until now, has been rarely seen since her death. A rare exception is the Methodist Art Collection to which she sold two of her paintings in 1965, Storm on the Lake and The Five Thousand, copies of which she made for her own collection.
It was always Eularia’s intention that the collection should be seen as a whole and The Eularia Clarke Trust is now facilitating this.