Phil Baker's Austin Osman Spare biography

 

I have just finished Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist by the British writer Phil Baker, and I want to take a moment to  recommend it; while I know little of occultism and British art history, I admire good writing and careful biographical research and I found plenty of both here. Spare was a British artist and occultist; Baker remarks that Spare is "obscure and famous at the same time" (that would also be an apt description of Robert Anton Wilson, perhaps), and I confess I did not recognize Spare's name when Gregory Arnott sent me a copy of the book.

Spare had a habit of telling wonderful stories about himself that did not actually happen to be true, so Baker's task was not easy. Baker notes, "Biography can only follow its subject so far, especially a character like Spare, whose real life was internal. The life of an occultist is very different from the life of a tycoon or a general, and Spare was a hidden figure whose  life is lived largely on the inner planes ... "

I did feel I learned quite a bit about life in London over the decades, the British art scene, and some of Spare's contemporaries. There are many entertaining characters, such as Gerald Gardner and Kenneth Grant, and I read for example about George Moore, an Irish writer whose name was not before known to me: "His several volumes of autobiography are filled with tales of his sexual conquests, but it seems he may, in fact, have died a virgin."(

My copy of the book is the third edition, and Baker took the opportunity with each edition to make corrections and write updates at the back of the book. The publisher is Strange Attractor Press, and as with the other books by that British publisher, it is attractively put together and appears to be carefully edited. (Check out the publisher's website).