Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare

1886 - 1956

The Necrophilists

inscribed A.O. Spare, titled and numbered MMMC231. (on a label attached to the reverse of the frame)

watercolour and pencil on paper

sold together with another sketch, pencil, by Austin Osman Spare, acquired from The Atlantis Bookshop, London, 2003

(2)

1) unframed: 28 by 30cm.; 11 by 11¾in.; 2) unframed: 39 by 29cm.; 15¼ by 11½in.

1) framed: 44 by 52cm.; 17½ by 20½in. 2) framed: 52.5 by 42.5cm.; 20½ by 16¾in.

The present work is from The Book of Ugly Ecstasy. This was a sketchbook of around 60 plus drawings produced by Spare in 1924. He completed just 23 of the automatic sketches, each numbered, but the remainder were left unfinished.

We are grateful to Robert Shehu-Ansell for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.