Featured Painting:

Arthur Prince Spear was trained at some of the most prestigious institutions of his time, including the Art Students League of New York and the Académie Julian of Paris. Under the guidance of instructors such as Jean Paul Laurens, Spear developed an impressionist- inspired style which he brought back with him to the United States in 1907. He joined the Fenway Studios building in Boston, and executed soft, loosely painted landscapes and genre scenes until 1915. At this point his style underwent a drastic transformation, and he began painting the subjects for which he is best known: mythological nudes, imaginary landscapes and underwater scenes. It is not clear why Spear made this transition, but his focus on escapism distinguished his work from the more traditional, realist tendencies of his Boston School contemporaries. Created during this period of imaginative works, The Signs of the Zodiac was exhibited at both the Pennsylvania Academy and the National Academy in 1934, and also at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The free-floating figures and astrological symbols are clearly recognizable as a result of his academic training, but are rendered with the vigorous brushwork and rich palette he applied to his fantasy subjects. The painting also serves as a backdrop in the artist’s only known self-portrait, painted in 1942, as illustrated in Arthur P. Spear Jr.’s book on his father.

To supplement his income, Spear taught life drawing at the Fenway School of Illustration, and in his own studio during the 1930s, which was then located in his Brookline home. Spear enjoyed great success as both artist and teacher, and was awarded a medal at the Pan- American Exposition of 1915 and a prize at the National Academy in 1922. In addition to the Pennsylvania Academy and the National Academy, where he became an Associate member in 1920, Spear exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, and locally at the Copley Gallery, the Guild of Boston Artists, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Vose Galleries, with exhibitions of pastels and oils in 1924 and 1925, respectively.

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