Austin Osman Spare: The Occult Life of London's Legendary Artist

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists

Austin Osman Spare: The Occult Life of London's Legendary Artist Details

Review From the foreword: "Phil Baker has established himself as among the very best contemporary biographers... What Baker has accomplished here is little short of marvellous."—Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell "[written with] zest and insight .... Ever determined to break down the barriers between reality and fantasy, Spare has finally achieved it--not by elaborate psychic exercises, but through biography."—The Times Literary Supplement"Baker has a fine store of anecdotes... What emerges is a portrait of a marginal figure forever ahead of the curve: [Spare]'s cited as the precursor of surrealism, pop art and even psychoanalysis."—The Guardian "Baker is a wonderful writer, careful, intelligent, and dry. He also knows his London, and the Spare that emerges in his portrayal is very much an avatar of that unique and ancient town."—Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Nomad Codes"The time is over-ripe for a proper biography of this curious figure, and it is a pleasure to report that Phil Baker's study is a first-rate performance, scrupulously researched, judicious, and refreshingly sane .... By the end of this admirable book, Spare comes to seem a strangely attractive figure: talented, stoical, randy, cantankerous, gentle, and a magnificent English eccentric."—The Literary Review"I cannot recommend Austin Osman Spare too highly. Phil Baker has done a wonderful job of bringing the complexities and contradictions of Spare's life to the fore, and in making the London of Spare's time come to life vividly and richly."—Phil Hine, author of Condensed Chaos Read more About the Author PHIL BAKER is a London-based writer who has written books on absinthe, occult novelist Dennis Wheatley, Samuel Beckett, and William Burroughs, with two more books in preparation on London and opium. He also writes for several newspapers, including the Sunday Times and the Times Literary Supplement. Read more

Reviews

Lately I've read several biographies of artists, most recently of Lautrec and Whistler. Despite both of them being problematic people with difficult lives or personalities, the authors of those biographies managed to depict not only the world that produced the artist but what influenced the artist's work. I did not get that from this biography. Yes, names are mentioned, but the biographer has disdain for pretty much everyone--including his subject, Spare. Over and over we are presented with Spare making up stuff about himself and generally being a buffoon. Likewise Crowley, portrayed as a showoff and a fraud and a sponger. Likewise Kenneth Grant, just full of baloney. In fact, in this biography's world, most people are buffoons, and then frankly the reader has to think that so much buffoonery populating the book's world has more to do with the author than with the world he is describing.Not once did I get a sense of where Spare's art really came from. Baker mentions a teacher but says nothing about that teacher's art or his perspective. And once Spare is grown up, it's as if he exists in a vacuum in terms of the world of art. Certainly he was quite isolated at points in his life. So the claims that he was surrealist before Surrealism are just plain not true because there was very little connection between them. But over and over I asked myself, well, where did he fit in in terms of art? Why were people buying his stuff?I don't think his work is much like Beardsley, who yes, used wonderful lines but also was very masterful using black and in his composition. You don't see that in Spare's work, so for me, the Beardsley connection is overstated.Also, there is so much description of him being rather nasty, such as feeding Crowley some cookies made with dog turds and horse manure, that when we at last get to a couple sentences describing how he loved animals and fed the cats that were left without homes due to the Blitz, it seems almost out of character.When I finished the biographies I read of Whistler and Lautrec, I felt I had gained a lot of insight into both as artists and as people. I don't get that feeling with this book. And for that reason, I don't recommend it.A quibble--the most bizarre system of references I have ever seen. No footnotes, just a bunch of phrases in the back giving where the author got this or that quote or idea.

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