Occult & Esoterica
[SPARE, Austin Osman; WALLACE, Dr. William] The Catalpa Monographs. A Critical Survey of the Art and Writings of Austin Osman Spare (Deluxe Edition of 100 Copies)
[SPARE, Austin Osman; WALLACE, Dr. William] The Catalpa Monographs. A Critical Survey of the Art and Writings of Austin Osman Spare (Deluxe Edition of 100 Copies)
London: Jerusalem Press, 2015. First Edition thus. Hardcover. Octavo. Bound in quarter purple leather over white cloth boards. Silver spine titles. Marbled endpapers. Page marker ribbon. Litho printed. Limited to 100 hand-numbered copies, this being No. 51. Book is signed by the author and laid in is an original signed ink drawing by the author, and a facsimile invitational card to a Spare exhibition from 1909. 250 pages. An errata slip is also present. Includes two plates sections in color, plus over 100 illustrations in black and white. A fine copy in like dust jacket, in a fine cloth-covered slipcase with large silver design to front panel. A fantastic production.
Comprising a revised and much expanded republication of the long out of print books ‘The Early Work…’ and ‘The Later Work of Austin Osman Spare’, this volume features 93 color images and includes 50 unpublished artworks by Spare. In addition, it features 20 very early ink drawings from a recently discovered private collection. An extensive new introduction analyzes the themes and obsessions in Spare’s art; palimpsests and Realism. By immersing himself in Spare’s creative impetus Wallace has explored not only occult texts and alchemical art, but has also found a rich vein of reference and allusion to the biblical texts, and the art of Blake, Hogarth and Shakespeare. There is an in-depth examination of the Mrs Paterson myth, ‘Black Eagle’, the first convincing decoding of the ‘L.C.O’C.S’ dedication of The Focus of Life and more.