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Austin Osman Spare

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Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare (December 30, 1886 - May 15, 1956) was an English artist and magician.

Biography

File:AOSpare-Dressing the Wounded during a Gas Attack 1918.jpg
"Dressing the Wounded During a Gas Attack", one of Spare's images done while serving as a war artist.

He was the son of a London policeman. As a child, he showed an affinity for art, and he briefly attended evening classes at Lambeth Art School. At the age of 13, he left school to become an apprentice to a stained glass maker, Powell's of Whitefriars Street. During his teen years, his fascination for the occult grew apace, heavily influencing the work he produced. In May 1904 one of his drawings was exhibited at the annual Royal Academy exhibition in London, generating a storm of publicity for the young artist.

In October 1907 Spare exhibited his drawings at the Bruton Gallery in London. Critics likened his work to that of Aubrey Beardsley, but Spare's images were full of grotesque, sexualized human figures and magical symbols. These elements appealed to avant-garde London intellectuals, and brought him to the attention of Aleister Crowley. He became a Probationer of Crowley's order Argenteum Astrum ("Of the Silver Star") in July 1909, but was not initiated as a member, although he contributed four small drawings to Crowley's publication The Equinox. Crowley later characterized Spare as a "Black Brother", meaning that he did not approve of the goals of Spare's magical philosophy. His magical motto was Yihoveaum.[1]

His iconoclasm, distaste for the props and symbolism of ceremonial magic and his aversion to moralism as well as his innovative use of sigilization served to distinguish his personal style of magic which his friend and associate Kenneth Grant called Zos Kia Cultus. Spare would later say that he learned much from a Mrs. Paterson, an elderly descendant of witches from Salem Village. His work text The Focus of Life includes a pencil drawing of her. He also spoke of and drew portraits of a spirit guide named Black Eagle who often appeared in the form of an Amerindian man.

In 1917, during World War I, Spare was conscripted into the British army, serving as a medical orderly of the Royal Army Medical Corps in London hospitals. He did not see active service, and was commissioned as an official War Artist in 1919. He visited the battlefields of France to record the work of the RAMC. Several of his works presently hang in the Imperial War Museum.

Although regarded as an artist of considerable talent and good prospects, Spare lived a rather secluded life from the mid 1920s onwards, falling out of step with changing trends and influences in the broader art scene. He sold his unique work for low prices at irregular exhibitions held in his home studio and in South London pubs. Spare expressed contempt at the idea of selling his works at higher prices - an option he could easily have had available to him. He worked very quickly and often finished drawings in minutes.

Publications

Privately printed by Spare during his life time

Books illustrated by Spare

  • Behind The Veil issued by David Nutt, 1906
  • Songs From The Classics published by David Nutt, 1907
  • The Equinox published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd. 1909
  • On the Oxford Circuit published by Smith, Elder & Co. 1909
  • The Starlit Mire published by John Lane 1911
  • Eight Poems published by Form at The Morland Press Ltd. 1916
  • Twelve Poems published by The Morland Press Ltd. 1916
  • The Gold Tree published by Martin Secker 1917
  • The Shadow of the Ragged Stone published by Elkin Matthews 1919
  • The Youth and the Sage privately printed, 1927

Magazines edited by Spare

  • Form - A Quarterly Of The Arts 1916-1922
  • Golden Hind 1922-1924

The majority of the books listed above are available as modern reprints. For a more complete listing see Clive Harper's Revised Notes Towards A Bibliography of Austin Osman Spare.

Significant titles published since Spare's death include Poems and Masks, A Book of Automatic Drawings, The Collected Works of Austin Osman Spare, Axiomata & The Witches' Sabbath, From The Inferno To Zos (3 Vol. Set), The Book of Ugly Ecstasy, and Zos Speaks.

Quotations

  • "At no time in my life have I been a person to hold myself polluted by the touch, habits or approach of any creature other than those who were human shape." Austin Osman Spare, c.1945

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley, page 237
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