Catalogue Two – July 2008

The material offered below is from a private collection in London. If you are interested in any of these works, please contact us via the website form here. We will then forward your enquiry to the vendor.

[Item 1]

[Faces and Foilage]
Pencil on paper
Signed with initials, and numbered 4.
c.late 1920s.
405mm x 295mm approx.

Provenance: used as an illustration in Convolvulus and other poems by Kenneth Grant, Starfire Publishing Ltd., London, 2005 (pages 84 and 85).
Notes: This is a very fine art nouveau piece, with crisp and flowing line.

£2,500 SOLD

[Item 2]

Unseen Associate
Pencil, pastel and charcoal on board
Signed with initials
c.1947
530mm x 400mm
Original frame and backboard. Artist’s label on backboard.

Exhibited: London, Archer Gallery, 1947, No. 143.
Provenance: Phillips, London, November 1999.
Notes: The portrait in the top left of this fine, brightly-coloured pastel appears to be Cary Grant and might be a reference to his film ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ in which he plays an angel come to earth to help a clergyman. The woman’s head appears to be a portrait of one of his co-stars, Rosalind Russell, perhaps.

£3,500

[Item 3]

[Richard Church]
Charcoal, chalk and pastel on card
Signed with initials AOS
1938
250mm x 180mm approx.
Unframed.

Notes: This is a beautiful portrait with some fine line and subtle colouring and some interesting planes on the face. Spare included a portrait of the novelist Richard Church (probably transcribed from a photograph) in one of his 1950s exhibitions (published in From the Inferno to Zos, Volume III, page 236) and there is a strong resemblance between that image and the one offered here, leading to speculation this may also be a portrait of Richard Church.

£1,800

[Item 4]

[Life Study]
Pencil, pastel and chalk on paper
Signed with initials and dated ‘AOS ’50′
440mm x 555mm

Exhibited: London, Clerkenwell, 1999 (reproduced in catalogue as ‘Beefcake’).
Provenance: London, Christies, September 1998.
Notes: This was amongst several lots of unframed material which came up for auction, and was in poor condition. It was restored by a paper conservator, but parts of the picture are missing.

The picture was in Spare’s 1952 exhibition at the Mansion House tavern, South London. One of the many photographs taken of the exhibition, showing this picture framed and hung (over the doorway, see above) was published on page 220 of a memoir of Spare by his friend Frank Letchford, Michaelangelo in a Teacup, published as Volume III of From the Inferno to Zos, First Impressions, 1995.

£1,250 SOLD

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