DARLING OF MAYFAIR

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 137, 8 December 1930, Page 15

DARLING OF MAYFAIR

ARTIST'S LIFE IN EAST END

Because in his opinion the faces of so many of the people of London's West End were cither entirely blank or registered nothing more interesting than self-pity, a prominent artist has given up his luxurious flat in Mayfair and | now lives and works in a. mean tenement flat in Borough. He is Mr. Austin O. Spare, an exhibition of whose ultramodern works was recently being arranged. Seven years ago Mr. Spare was the darling of Mayfair. Society hostesses vied with each other for his company at their social events. But the glamour of Mayfair meant little tfl Mr. Spare. His Borough flat is one of many dozens in a huge tenement building.

Sitting in Mr. Spare's workroom (writes a "Sunday Chronicle" representative), Mr. Spare explained why he had forsaken Mayfair: "In the West End," he said, "people don't know what suffering is. They have too much money. They are superficial. Life is so easy for them that their faces seldom have any expression whatever, for they have had no experiences to make any deep impression, and frequent callers hampered my work. Down here, however, it is very different. The people of this part of Borough are so poor and have to work, so hard that they have no time to make a fuss of themselves. Every emotion is registered iv their faces except self-pity. All my models arc poor people of the district. I get them in hostels and doss houses. Yes, life may not be quite so easy down here as in Mayfair, but this is where I can do my best work. I've got lots' of acquaintances locally, and, although I occasionally look up my old and fashionable, friends, I'm really happier in Borough than I Tvas in the West End."