ARTIST -- Austin Osman Spare (30 December 1886 – 15 May 1956) was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self. His artistic work is characterized by skilled draughtsmanship exhibiting a mastery of the use of the line, and often employs monstrous or fantastic magical and sexual imagery.Spare was born in Snow Hill, near Smithfield Market, London on 30 December 1886, the son of Philip Newton Spare, a City of London policeman who retired after 25 years of service, and Eliza Ann Adelaide Osman. He was the fifth of six children.Spare married the actress and dancer Eily Gertrude Shaw on the 4th of September 1911. The two had met some years before. Whatever influence she may have had upon Spare's work the marriage was short-lived, though never formally dissolved. The two separated around 1918-19. One known work of Spare's, inscribed, signed and dated as "Portrait of the Artist & His Wife March 26th 1912 AOS" is known. It shows the head of Spare executed in colored chalks and pencil. To one side, executed with only a few ghostly lines, we see the face of a woman with fine features, her head turned down and to the side, her eyes closed. Austin Osman Spare attended the church school, now a physiotherapy centre, behind the church in Snowhill Lane--St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, London, England.
ARTIST -- Austin Osman Spare (30 December 1886 – 15 May 1956) was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self. His artistic work is characterized by skilled draughtsmanship exhibiting a mastery of the use of the line, and often employs monstrous or fantastic magical and sexual imagery.Spare was born in Snow Hill, near Smithfield Market, London on 30 December 1886, the son of Philip Newton Spare, a City of London policeman who retired after 25 years of service, and Eliza Ann Adelaide Osman. He was the fifth of six children.Spare married the actress and dancer Eily Gertrude Shaw on the 4th of September 1911. The two had met some years before. Whatever influence she may have had upon Spare's work the marriage was short-lived, though never formally dissolved. The two separated around 1918-19. One known work of Spare's, inscribed, signed and dated as "Portrait of the Artist & His Wife March 26th 1912 AOS" is known. It shows the head of Spare executed in colored chalks and pencil. To one side, executed with only a few ghostly lines, we see the face of a woman with fine features, her head turned down and to the side, her eyes closed. Austin Osman Spare attended the church school, now a physiotherapy centre, behind the church in Snowhill Lane--St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, London, England.
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