num_pages: 56
description: A Book of Automatic Drawing is a large, folio-sized book of sketches by the renowned English artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare (1886 - 1956). The original work was executed by the artist in April and May of 1925 during a particularly turbulent period of his life in which he abandoned more commercial artistic styles and instead immersed himself in the creation of several series of his darkly-visionary "automatic drawings." Spare finished the work in 1925, but his attempts to publish it himself failed, and it remained unpublished until it was printed by the Catalpa Press (London) in 1973. The book is a magnificently-crafted reproduction of Spare's original manuscript sketchbook and comprises a decorative title, contents, and end pages, plus twelve full-page plates and an Introduction by Ian Law. The sheets of this Catalpa Press edition were beautifully produced by an art-printer in two issues: a "trade edition" printed on white laid paper and an "edition deluxe" on hand-made paper. Each copy of the edition deluxe was to be "posthumously signed" by Spare by way of tipped in signed cheque that had been recovered from his home after his death.
language: English
title: The Book of Automatic Drawing
titlecomplete: The Book of Automatic Drawing
genres: Occult, Art
ratings_count: 82
publisher: I-H-O Books