Austin Osman Spare: The man art history left behind – in pictures

Spare’s Portrait of the Artist (1907) shows him meditatively brooding over a table of imaginary bric-a-brac that reflects the contents of his mind Photograph: Austin Osman Spare

The Senseless Seven (1911), a self-portrait showing Spare’s kinship with the animal kingdom Photograph: The Starlit Mire

In The Death Posture and Preliminary Sensation Symbolised, both 1913, yoga and magical writing combine in an innovative attempt to visualise sensation
Photograph: The Book of Pleasure

Despite its philosophical title, The Negation of Unity is Wisdom (1919) is about the breakup of Spare’s marriage Photograph: Austin Osman Spare

Solid flesh is lovingly rendered in pastel in Reclining Nude, from the 1920s Photograph: Collection of Ossian Brown

Coquette, from the early 1930s, brings out a foxy charm in Mary Pickford Photograph: Collection of John Contreras

A striking portrait of Joan Crawford (1933) from the art deco era Photograph: Private collection

This elegantly distorted Portrait of a Young Woman (1933) is from Spare’s Experiments in Relativity series – the title of which shows the Einsteinian jargon fashionable in the day Photograph: Collection of Ossian Brown

Spare uses characteristics of the god Pan to give a subtle twist to male faces – as in South London Satyr, from the early 1930s Photograph: Private collection

Forms emerge as line is unleashed in Spare’s Threshold of the Qliphoth: Drawn for Magical Conation (1955), an experiment in automatism Photograph: Collection of Ossian Brown