Spear, Ruskin

1911

1990

Born and brought up in Hammersmith, at the age of fifteen Spear won a scholarship to the Hammersmith School of Art. He was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1931 and became friends with Walter Sickert and the CAmden Group, whose style influenced his work. He and Carel Weight shared an exhibition at the at the Picture Hire Gallery while in Spears' final year at the Royal College. His work was included in an exhibition entitled 'Four Literary Painters' at the Crane Kalman Gallery in 1965 and a one man show dedicated to him shortly after his death. Spear found it difficult to find galleries willing to take on a relatively unknown artist and took a job teaching an evening class at the Croydon School of Art. Unable to join the forces because of the damage to his legs during a childhood bout of polio, Spear was commissioned to paint pictures of the home front by the War Artists Advisory Commitee, and he also produced fashion illustrations for Vogue. He was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1944 and exhibited regularly in the Summer Exhibitions. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Royal Academy, London in 1980. Like many English artists, Spear's approach is descriptive, his style is satyrical. Many of his paintings were products of observing people living out their ordinary lives. He evidently had great psichological insight and focused in on people's flaws, exagerating them to great comic effect. He was also and excellent portraitist, whose sitters included Winston Chirchill, Harold Wilson, L.S. Lowry and Carel Weight. However he much preferred painting the people which inhabited the environs of West London. He exhibited at the RA from 1932; Elected RA in 1954; Retrospective exhibition at RA in 1980 was a popular and critical success.