from the Book of Ugly Ecstasy 1924 - Fulgur 1996
it would be sentimental to say that the figures in Ugly Ectasy and Automatic Drawings
are happy despite theirhideous appearances....in the words of WH Audens poem, 'In Memory of Sigmund Freud' -
Down among the lost people like Dante, down
To the stinking fosse where the injured
Lead the ugly life of the rejected.
Nevertheless, Spare signed off Automatic Drawing on a defiant and innuendo-laden note: "Great is he who pleasures this difficult life," he wrote, and "He has found wisdom who knows how to spend"*
*Victorian euphemism for ejaculation.
excerpt from Austin Osman Spare - The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist
by Phil Baker
