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Austin Osman Spare (December 30, 1886 - May 15, 1956) was an English artist and magician.
He was the boy of a London policeman. As a kid, he showed an affinity for art, & he briefly attended an art school. At the age of Long dozen, he left school to be an prentice to a stained glass maker. When you took his teenage years, his fascination for a occult grew speedily, heavy influencing the act he produced. Inside Could 1904 one of his drawings was exhibited at the annual Royal Academy exhibition in London, generating the storm of publicity for the immature creative person.
Inside October 1907 Spare exhibited his drawings at the Bruton gallery within London. His operate resembled that of Aubrey Beardsley, but was good of grotesque, sexualized person numbers & wizard symbols. These elements appealed to avant-garde London intellectuals, & brought him to the attention of Aleister Crowley. Spare became the Probationer of Crowley's sequentially Argenteum Astrum ("Of the Silver Star") around July 1909, however was non initiated as a member, although he contributed quaternity little drawings to Crowley's publication A Equinox. Crowley late characterized Spare as a "Black Brother", meaning that he did not approve of the goals of Spare's witching philosophy.
Around 1917, during World War I, Spare was conscripted into the British army, serving as a medical orderly of the Royal Army Medical Corps in London hospitals. He did non underst& active service, and was accredited as an official War Artist in 1919. He visited a battleground of France to record a operate of the R.The.M.C.
Although regarded as an creative person of considerable talent & dependable prospects, Spare chose does'nt for required into the London art scene, however lived a like secluded life financed by pictures (portraits particularly) he sold for super little sums to friends & neighbors. Spare expressed contempt at a idea of selling his work on higher cost - an guide he can well will have. He worked super quickly & typically finished drawings around minutes.
Spare's artistic & wizardly publications include Globe Inferno, A Book of Pleasure, A Focus of Life, manuscripts of 'Logomachy of Zos' & 'Zoetic Grimoire of Zos' which remained uncompleted at his dying in Might 15, 1956. Notwithstanding a Zoetic Grimoire was published by Kenneth Grant in "Zos Speaks" in 1998.
His iconoclasm & aversion to moralism besides when his sigilization served to distinguish his personal style of magic (a "Zos Kia Cultus") from others.
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