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Start giftingAustin Osman Spare
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Learn moreLondon has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956).
A controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, the young Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, while George Bernard Shaw reportedly said "Spare's medicine is too strong for the average man."
But Spare was never made for worldly success and he went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity south of the river. Absorbed in occultism and sorcery, voyaging into inner dimensions, and surrounding himself with cats and familiar spirits, he continued to produce extraordinary art while developing a magical philosophy of pleasure, obsession, and the subjective nature of reality.
Today Spare is both forgotten and famous, a cult figure whose modest life has been much mythologized since his death. This groundbreaking biographical study offers wide-ranging insights into Spare's art, mind, and world, reconnecting him with the art history that ignored him and exploring his parallel London; a bygone place of pub pianists, wealthy alchemists, and monstrous owls.
Phil Baker is a writer based in London. His books include The Devil Is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley and Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist, called by Alan Moore "little short of marvelous."
Mike Cooper is a British voice talent who left big-city life in London for a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Mike is recognizable from his years with the BBC World Service, and as the narrator of countless television documentaries. A disruptive influence in school, Mike's first break in narration came at age six, when his teacher realized he could tell the afternoon story better than her (and she could get a nap by way of a bonus). When he's not in his home studio, you'll find him enjoying hobby farm life and tending to two charming pet goats, named Baxter and Hazel.