Phil Baker - Artist and Visionary Austin Osman Spare: Illustrated - LIVE

Please note this is NOT a ZOOM Lecture but an in person lecture at our museum - tickets include a complimentary glass of Absinthe

Doors open at 6:30pm and lecture starts at 7pm

Phil Baker on Artist and Visionary Austin Osman Spare: A Live, Illustrated Lecture - LIVE

Forgotten and famous at the same time, Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) is now a cult figure, much mythologized since his death. Controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, but instead, he fell out of the West End art scene and went underground, living in poverty and obscurity in South London. 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.

Phil Baker’s groundbreaking biographical study offers wide-ranging insights into Spare’s art, mind and world, reconnecting him with the mainstream art history that ignored him and exploring his parallel London; a bygone place of pub pianists, twentieth-century alchemists and gigantic owls.

Richly readable and illuminating, it 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.

Phil Baker

Phil Baker's books include Austin Osman Spare, The Dedalus Book of Absinthe, a biography of Dennis Wheatley, The Devil is a Gentleman, and critical works on Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs. He lives in London

We are unable to give refunds for in person events with less than seven days notice in any circumstances

is London's first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society's Absinthe Parlour & Cocktail Bar.

Host or Publisher The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities