Childhood: 1886–1900 Austin's father, Philip Newton Spare, was born in
Yorkshire in 1857, and moved to London, where he gained employment with the
City of London Police in 1878, being stationed at Snow Hill Police Station. Austin's mother, Eliza Osman, was born in
Devon, the daughter of a Royal Marine, and married Philip Newton Spare at
St Bride's Church in
Fleet Street in December 1879. Their first child to survive was John Newton Spare, born in 1882, with William Herbert Spare following in 1883 and then Susan Ann Spare in 1885. The couple's fourth surviving child, Austin Osman Spare, was born shortly after four o'clock on the morning of 30 December 1886. Spare attended St. Agnes School, attached to a prominent
High Anglican church, and as a child he was brought up within the
Anglican denomination of
Christianity. Taking an interest in drawing, from about the age of 12, he began taking evening classes at
Lambeth School of Art under the tutorship of
Philip Connard.
Artistic training: 1900–1905 In 1900, Spare began working as a designer at Powell's glass-working business in Whitefriars Street, which had links to the
Arts and Crafts movement and
William Morris. In the evenings he attended the Lambeth School of Art. Two visitors to Powell's, Sir William Blake Richmond and FH Richmond RBA, came across some of Spare's drawings, and, impressed by them, they recommended him for a scholarship to the
Royal College of Art (RCA) in
South Kensington. He achieved further attention when his drawings were exhibited in the British Art Section of the
St. Louis Exposition and the
Paris International Exhibition, and in 1903 he won a silver medal at the National Competition of Schools of Art, where the judges, who included
Walter Crane and
Byam Shaw, praised his "remarkable sense of colour and great vigour of conception." Soon, he began studying at the RCA, but was dissatisfied with the teaching he received there, becoming a truant and being disciplined by his tutors as a result. Influenced by the work of
Charles Ricketts,
Edmund Sullivan,
George Frederic Watts and
Aubrey Beardsley, his artistic style focused on clear lines, which was in stark contrast to the College's emphasis on shading. Still living in his parents' home, he began dressing in unconventional and flamboyant garb, and became popular with other students at the college, with a particularly strong friendship developing between Spare and
Sylvia Pankhurst, a prominent
Suffragette and leftist campaigner. After becoming a practising occultist, he wrote and illustrated his first
grimoire,
Earth Inferno (1905), in which he took as his premise Blavatsky's idea that Earth already was
Hell. The work exhibited a variety of influences, including theosophy, the
Bible,
Omar Khayyam,
Dante's
Inferno and his own mystical ideas regarding Zos and
Kia. In May 1904, Spare held his first public art exhibition in the foyer of the Newington Public Library in Walworth Road. Here, his paintings illustrated many of the themes that would continue to inspire him throughout his life, including his mystical views about Zos and Kia. His father then surreptitiously submitted two of Spare's drawings to the
Royal Academy, one of which, a design for a bookplate, was accepted for exhibition at that year's prestigious
summer exhibition. Journalists from the British press took a particular interest in his work, highlighting the fact that, at seventeen years of age, he was the youngest artist in the exhibition, with some erroneously claiming that he was the youngest artist to ever exhibit at the show. In 1905, he left the RCA without having received any qualifications.
Early career: 1906–1910 Having left higher education, Spare became employed as a bookplate designer and illustrator, with his first book commission being for
Ethel Rolt Wheeler's
Behind the Veil, published by the company
David Nutt in 1906. In ensuing years he would also illustrate such texts as Charles Grindrod's
The Shadow of the Raggedstone (1909) and Justice Darling's
On the Oxford Circuit and other Verses (1909). In 1905, he once more exhibited at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition, having submitted a drawing known as
The Resurrection of Zoroaster, featuring beaked serpents swirling around the figure of the
ancient Persian philosopher who founded
Zoroastrianism. Diversifying his employment, In 1906, Spare published his first
political cartoon, a satire on the use of Chinese
wage slave labourers in British South Africa, which appeared in the pages of
The Morning Leader newspaper. When not involved in these jobs, he devoted much of his time to illustrating a second publication,
A Book of Satyrs, which consisted of a series of nine
satirical images lampooning such institutions as politics and the clergy. The volume contained a number of self-portraits; he also filled many of the images with illustrations of
bric-a-brac, of which he was a great collector. The book was finished off with an introduction authored by Scottish painter
James Guthrie. Proud of his son's achievement, Spare's father would later inquire as to whether the publisher
John Lane of
Bodley Head would be interested in re-printing
A Book of Satyrs, leading to the release of an expanded second edition in 1909. Meanwhile, in 1907 Spare produced one of his most significant illustrations, a drawing titled
Portrait of the Artist, featuring himself sitting behind a table covered in assorted bric-a-brac. -guitarist
Jimmy Page. In October 1907 Spare held his first major exhibition, titled simply "Black and White Drawings by Austin O Spare", at the Bruton Gallery in London's West End. Attracting widespread interest and sensational views in the press, he was widely compared to Aubrey Beardsley, with reviewers commenting on what they saw as the eccentric and grotesque nature of his work.
The World commented that "his inventive faculty is stupendous and terrifying in its creative flow of impossible horrors", while
The Observer noted that "Mr. Spare's art is abnormal, unhealthy, wildly fantastic and unintelligible". One of those attracted to Spare's work was
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), an occultist who had founded the religion of
Thelema in 1904, taking as its basis Crowley's
The Book of the Law. Crowley introduced himself to Spare, becoming a patron and champion of his art, which he proclaimed to be a message from the Divine. Spare subsequently submitted several drawings for publication in Crowley's Thelemite journal,
The Equinox, receiving payment in the form of an expensive ritual robe. Spare would also be invited to join Crowley's new Thelemite magical order, the
A∴A∴ or
Argenteum Astrum, which had been co-founded with
George Cecil Jones in 1907. Becoming the seventh member of the order in July 1907, where he used the magical name of
Yihovaeum, it was through doing so that he befriended the occultist
Victor Neuburg. Although he remained in A∴A∴ until 1912, ultimately Spare never became a full member, disliking Crowley's emphasis on strict hierarchy and organisation and becoming heavily critical of the practice of
ceremonial magic. In turn, Crowley would claim that Spare was only interested in "
black magic" and for that reason had kept him back from fully entering the Order. Spare's major patron during this period was the wealthy property developer Pickford Waller, although other admirers included Desmond Coke, Ralph Strauss,
Lord Howard de Walden and
Charles Ricketts. Spare became popular among
avant-garde homosexual circles in Edwardian London, with several known gay men becoming patrons of his work. In particular he became good friends with the same-sex couple
Marc-André Raffalovich and
John Gray, with Spare later characterising the latter as "the most wonderful man I have ever met." Gray would introduce Spare to the Irish novelist
George Moore, whom he would subsequently befriend. The actual nature of Spare's sexuality at the time remains debated; his friend
Frank Brangwyn would later claim that he was "strongly" homosexual but had suppressed these leanings. In contrast to this, in later life Spare would refer to a wide variety of
heterosexual encounters that took place at this time, including with an
intersex person, a
dwarf with a protuberant forehead and a Welsh maid.
Marriage and The Book of Pleasure: 1911–1916 On one occasion, Spare met a middle-aged woman named Mrs Shaw in a pub in
Mayfair. Eager to marry off her daughter, who already had one child from an earlier relationship, Mrs Shaw soon introduced Spare to her child, Eily Gertrude Shaw (1888-1938). Spare fell in love, producing a number of portraits of Eily, before marrying her on 4 September 1911. However, the relationship between Spare and his wife was strained; unlike him, she was "unintellectual and materialistic", and disliked many of his friends, particularly the younger males, asking him to cease his association with them. Around 1910, Spare illustrated
The Starlit Mire, a book of epigrams written by two doctors, James Bertram and F. Russell, in which his illustrations once more displayed his interest in the abnormal and the grotesque. Another notable work from this period was an illustration known as
A Fantasy, which included a self-portrait of Spare surrounded by a variety of horned animals and a horned
hermaphrodite creature, visually depicting his belief in the innate mental connection between humanity and our non-human ancestors. Over a period of several years, Spare began work on his third tome,
The Book of Pleasure (Self Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy, which he self-published in 1913. Exploring his own mystical ideas regarding the human being and their unconscious mind, it also discussed magic and the use of sigils. "Conceived initially as a pictorial allegory the book quickly evolved into a much deeper work, drawing inspiration from
Taoism and
Buddhism, but primarily from his experiences as an artist." The book sold poorly, and received a mixed review from the
Times Literary Supplement, which while accepting Spare's "technical mastery", was more critical of much of the content. In 1914, Spare was involved in a newly launched popular art magazine known as
Colour, which was edited in Victoria Street, submitting a number of contributions to its early issues. He soon developed the idea of founding his own art magazine, suggesting the idea to the publisher
John Lane, who had formerly produced
The Yellow Book, an influential periodical that had appeared between 1894 and 1897. Envisioning his new venture, titled
Form, as a successor to
The Yellow Book, he was joined as co-editor by the etcher
Frederick Carter, who used the pseudonym of Francis Marsden. The first issue appeared in the summer of 1916, containing contributions from
Edmund Joseph Sullivan,
Walter de la Mare,
Frank Brangwyn,
W.H. Davies,
J.C. Squire, Ricketts and Shannon. Spare and Carter co-wrote an article discussing
automatic writing, arguing that it allowed the unconscious part of the mind to produce art, a theme that Spare had previously dealt with in
The Book of Pleasure. Generally,
Form was poorly received by the critics and the public, being described as a "very horrible publication" by
George Bernard Shaw, who proclaimed its design and layout to be "ancient
Morrisian" and thereby out of fashion.
World War I, The Focus of Life and The Anathema of Zos: 1917–1927 In 1917, with the
First World War still raging, Spare was conscripted into the
Royal Army Medical Corps, where he worked as a medical orderly. Later, he was appointed to the position of Acting Staff-Sergeant, and given the task of illustrating the conflict along with other artists based in a studio at 76 Fulham Road. Spare was demobilized in 1919. Although they never gained a
divorce, Spare had separated from his wife Eily, who had begun a relationship with another man. Focusing on the writing and illustration of a new book, 1921 saw the publication of
The Focus of Life The Mutterings of AOS by Morland Press. Edited and introduced by Frederick Carter, the book once more dealt with Spare's mystical ideas, continuing many of the themes explored in
The Book of Pleasure. The success of this book led Spare to decide to revive
Form, with the first issue appearing in a new format in October 1921, edited by Spare and his friend
W.H. Davies. Intended to be populist in tone, contributions came from
Sidney Sime,
Robert Graves, Herbert Furst,
Laura Knight,
Frank Brangwyn,
Glyn Philpot,
Edith Sitwell,
Walter de la Mare,
J.F.C. Fuller and
Havelock Ellis. However, Spare discontinued the magazine after the third issue, which was published in January 1922. He then moved on the production of another art journal,
The Golden Hind, co-edited with
Clifford Bax and published by
Chapman and Hall. The first issue appeared in October 1922, featuring a lithograph from Spare titled "The New Eden." Faced with problems, the journal eventually decreased in size from a folio to a quarto, and in 1924 it folded after eight issues. The summer of 1924 saw Spare produce a sketchbook of "automatic drawings" titled
The Book of Ugly Ecstasy, which contained a series of grotesque creatures; the sole copy of the book would be purchased by the art historian
Gerald Reitlinger. The spring of 1925 then saw the production of a similar sketchbook,
A Book of Automatic Drawings, and then a further suite of pictures, titled
The Valley of Fear. He also began work on a new book, a piece of
automatic writing titled
The Anathema of Zos: The Sermon to the Hypocrites, which served as a criticism of British society influenced by the ideas of German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche. Spare would self-publish it in an edition of 100 copies from his sister's house in
Goodmayes,
Essex, in 1927.
Surrealism and World War II: 1927–1945 Spare held exhibitions of his work at the St. George's Gallery in
Hanover Square in 1927, and then at the
Lefevre Gallery in 1929, but his work received little praise in the press or attention from the public. Living in poverty and with his work becoming unpopular in the mainstream London art scene, Spare contemplated suicide. He then undertook a series of
anamorphic portraits, predominantly of young women, which he termed the "Experiments in Reality". Influenced by the work of
El Greco, they were exhibited at the Godfrey Phillips Galleries in
St James's, Central London in November 1930, an exhibit that proved to be Spare's last in London's West End. Surrealism took an interest in automatism and the unconscious, and the reporter Hubert Nicholson ran a story on Spare titled "Father of Surrealism – He's a Cockney!". Jumping onto this new craze for surrealism, Spare released a set of what he described as "SURREALIST Racing Forecast Cards" for use in
divination. The renewed interest benefited him, with his 1936, 1937 and 1938 exhibitions in Walworth Road proving a success, and he began teaching students at his studio in what he called his Austin Spare School of Draughtsmanship. When the
Second World War broke out against
Nazi Germany in 1939, Spare, an ardent anti-Nazi, tried to enlist into the army, but was deemed too old. In the ensuing
Blitz of London by the German
Luftwaffe, Spare's flat and all the artwork in it was destroyed by a bomb on 10 May 1941, leaving him temporarily homeless.
Kenneth Grant and later life: 1946–1956 Following the culmination of the war, Spare held a comeback show in November 1947 at the Archer Gallery. A commercial success, the works on display showed the increasing influence of
Spiritualism on his thought, and included a number of portraits of prominent Spiritualists like
Arthur Conan Doyle and
Kate Fox-Jencken. He also featured a number of portraits of famous movie stars in the exhibit, leading him to later gain the moniker of "the first British
Pop Artist". In the spring of 1949, a recently married woman named Steffi Grant introduced herself to Spare. She introduced him to her husband
Kenneth Grant (1924–2011). Spare and the Grants became great friends, frequenting a number of London pubs together and sharing books on the subject of the esoteric. The Grants' influence led Spare to begin writing several new occult manuscripts, the
Logomachy of Zos and the
Zoetic Grimoire of Zos. Under Grant's influence, Spare began to show an increasing interest in
witchcraft and the
witches' sabbath, producing artworks with titles such as "Witchery", "Walpurgis Vampire" and "Satiated Succubi" and claiming that on a bus he had encountered a group of female witches on their way to the Sabbath. Spare held his first pub show at the Temple Bar in Walworth Road in late 1949, which again proved successful, earning Spare 250 guineas. One of those who had seen the show was publisher Michael Hall, and impressed by Spare's work, he commissioned him to help provide illustrations for his new periodical,
The London Mystery Magazine. The fifth issue, for August–September 1950, contained an article on Spare and his work, while the sixth contained an article written by
Algernon Blackwood that was illustrated by Spare. ==As artist==