The
top painting (12-1/2 inch by 7-1/2 inch) was sold at Christie's
in 2016 for GBP 18,750. Provenance: "John Balance, from whom purchased by the present owner in December 2002."
Christie's
essay: Spare produced an extraordinary body of realist portraits as well as
glamorous portrayals of Hollywood stars, which he painted from existing
photographs to create his unusually stylised compositions. The artist
referred to these as ‘sidereal’ portraits. The term was used to denote
Spare’s unique style, a play on the literal meaning of the term ‘of the
stars’, and ‘real from the side.’ The present lot portrays Joan
Crawford, an American film and television star, one of the greatest
female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Spare considered film stars as
modern Pagan gods, and through his 'sidereal' adaptations he sought to
capture their real existence in a spatial, possibly ‘fourth dimension’.
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