Arts: The secret kept by artist's wife and her lover

The masquerade: An exhibition of art by Stanley Spencer's glamorous wife opens shortly - but she didn't do it, claims curator

Patricia Preece, the glamorous wife of Stanley Spencer who gained fame in her own right for her paintings in the first half of this century, did not carry out any of the work, it was claimed yesterday.

In a revelation which will generate ripples in the art world, Michael Dickens, curator of the first comprehensive exhibition of Preece's work, said yesterday that the real artist was Dorothy Hepworth, Preece's long- time companion and lover.

Until now the two were thought to have collaborated on the miniatures, portraits and still lifes bought by such famous names as Virginia Woolf, Augustus John and the collector Edward Marsh. But Mr Dickens said yesterday: "Patricia did very little painting in her life. Dorothy allowed her to take credit for work she did not do."

It is the first categorical claim that Preece masqueraded as the artist. Although she often signed the paintings, organised their exhibition and sale, Mr Dickens has found evidence from joint diaries kept by the women which proves that Preece had no hand in their creation beyond arranging objects for their still life paintings.

The claim is the latest development in the extraordinary life led by Preece and Hepworth in Cookham, Berkshire, yards from where Preece's husband, Stanley Spencer, lived and painted his best-known outsize biblical canvases.

In 1937, Preece had married Spencer to the scandal of the Berkshire village, for Spencer left his first wife, Hilda Carline, for the woman who had openly lived for years with Hepworth.

Tall and elegant, the daughter of an Army officer, the vampish and sociable Preece was down on her luck financially. But marriage to Spencer set the seal on a lucrative - albeit fraudulent - artistic career.

It did not signal the end of her friendship with Hepworth. For although Spencer booked a honeymoon to St Ives he decided to stay at Cookham to finish a painting and attempt reconciliation with Hilda. Preece took Hepworth on the honeymoon instead. They continued to live together after the wedding and it remains unclear whether the marriage to Spencer was consummated.

Preece later spoke with revulsion of her diminutive husband's curious tastes. He painted her nude, was fascinated by her legs, and bought her numerous pairs of shoes, gaudy underwear and frilly frocks. "He had to turn me into something horrible to obtain maximum satisfaction from our liaison. There was something appalling about Stanley," she said.

In the meantime the pair who had met at the Slade School of Art in London - where Preece got a pass and Hepworth took first class honours - continued their artistic "collaboration" in the face of several sticky moments when they feared their trick would be discovered.

One close shave came after Virginia Woolf bought two drawings from the pair in the early 1930s. She was so taken with them that she asked Preece to paint a portrait of a friend, Ethel Smythe. "Patricia went into a complete twitch and said she couldn't possibly do it unless Ethel came into the studio," Mr Dickens reports.

Preece died in 1968, aged 74, and Hepworth continued to paint, concentrating obsessively on self-portraits. But even after Preece's death, Hepworth continued to use Preece's name on her work until her own death in the late 1970s.

The first comprehensive exhibition of the work attributed to Preece begins on 10 June, at the Olivier Foyer in the National Theatre, on London's South Bank, and runs to 27 July.