SPARE, Austin Osman.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Four sketch portraits and character notes by the artist Grace E. Rogers. A revealing archive, including rare unpublished portraits of the artist and occultist, executed by one of his friends and pupils as he began to slide from public view. Rogers's portraits show Spare in pensive poses and are influenced by Spare's fluid, intuitive line. The collection also contains manuscript notes on Spare's teachings and personality, and three other artworks by Rogers.Grace Evelyn Rogers (1882-1959) was educated at the Slade and Liverpool College of Art and primarily produced woodcuts and lithographs. In 1922, she became acquainted with Austin Osman Square through the art periodical that he edited, The Golden Hind. They met at his basement flat in the then-deprived area of Southwark, where Rogers saw his "grotesque and arabesque designs, rather obscene in nature but exquisite in execution". At another early meeting, he told her of his belief that "the dream life is the only real life - in the dream world we tap the subconscious and get the unadulterated truth" (The Goth, p. 21). Although Spare often appears in various guises in his own work, he rarely sat for portraits by others, and Rogers' informal renderings are fascinating glimpses of the artist unposed. One portrait has annotations which note childhood memories, perhaps those of Rogers.Rogers was heavily influenced by Spare's art and his ideology. In 1925, he was the subject of an article that she published in the journal Artwork, in

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