A revised edition of Phil Baker's critically lauded biography of artist and occultist, Austin Osman Spare. London 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.
This richly readable and illuminating biography takes us deep into the strange inner world that this most enigmatic of artists inhabited, shedding new light while allowing just a few shadowy corners to flourish unspoiled.
Revised, updated, and with a new afterword by the author, this is the definitive edition of Phil Baker's critically lauded
Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist.
菲爾·貝克（Phil Baker）備受讚譽的藝術家及神秘學家奧斯丁·奧斯曼·斯佩爾（Austin Osman Spare）傳記的修訂版。
倫敦孕育了許多奇特的人物，但很少有比藝術家和先知奧斯丁·奧斯曼·斯佩爾（1886-1956）更為奇特的。作為愛德華時代藝術界的爭議性「壞小子」，年輕的斯佩爾被譽為天才和新一代的奧布里·比爾斯利（Aubrey Beardsley），而喬治·伯納德·肖（George Bernard Shaw）據說曾說過「斯佩爾的藥方對普通人來說太過強烈」。
然而，斯佩爾從未注定要獲得世俗的成功，他選擇隱退，脫離畫廊體系，過著貧困和默默無聞的生活，居住在河的南岸。沉浸於神秘學和巫術中，他探索內在的維度，並與貓和靈體為伴，持續創作出非凡的藝術，同時發展出一種關於快樂、痴迷和現實主觀性的魔法哲學。
如今，斯佩爾既被遺忘又成名，成為一位崇拜人物，他的樸素生活自他去世以來被神話化。這部開創性的傳記研究提供了對斯佩爾的藝術、思想和世界的廣泛見解，重新將他與忽視他的藝術史聯繫起來，並探索他平行的倫敦；那是一個充滿酒吧鋼琴家、富有的煉金術士和怪異貓頭鷹的過去之地。
這部豐富可讀且啟發性的傳記深入探討了這位最神秘藝術家所居住的奇異內心世界，為我們揭示新的光芒，同時讓一些陰暗的角落得以保持原貌。經過修訂和更新，並附有作者的新後記，這是菲爾·貝克備受讚譽的《奧斯丁·奧斯曼·斯佩爾：倫敦失落藝術家的生活與傳說》的權威版。
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 (Strange Attractor), called by Alan Moore "little short of marvelous."
