Samuel Robin Spark was a Scottish artist. He was the son of Sidney Oswald Spark and writer Muriel Spark. Prolific in his work, he created more than 1,000 paintings, photographs, and short texts and articles about art, Jewish culture, and his own family.
Early life
Spark was born in Southern Rhodesia, then a British colony, to Sydney and Muriel Spark. His parents had met in Edinburgh at a dance, and his father had later travelled to Southern Rhodesia, where he worked as a teacher. Muriel had joined Sydney in 1937, and Robin was born the following July in Bulawayo. The marriage soon deteriorated, however, as Sydney, who was 13 years Muriel's senior, suffered from manic depression and had violent tendencies. Sydney refused to divorce Muriel, so Muriel left him, taking Robin with her. They moved first to Cape Town, living in a flat below Princess Frederica of Greece and the young Constantine. Towards the end of the Second World War, Muriel managed to travel back to the United Kingdom by means of a troop ship, but was unable to secure passage for the four-year-old Robin, who was left in a convent school. In September 1945 Muriel brought Robin to Edinburgh. She then went to London to seek work, leaving Robin to be raised by Muriel's parents, the Cambergs, in their flat in Morningside/Bruntsfield. Muriel Spark converted to Catholicism in 1954, but Robin chose to remain loyal to Judaism, much to his grandparents' satisfaction. Muriel did not attend his Bar Mitzvah in 1952, but sent 50 pounds for the party afterwards.
Education and careers
Robin was educated at the private Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh. He left at the age of 16 to pursue a career in the retail jewellery trade. He served his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1957 to 1959, after which he studied at night school in order to obtain his Highers. In the late 1960s he entered the Civil Service, in which he worked for 20 years in a variety of departments, ending up as Chief Clerk to the Scottish Law Commission. Despite having never studied art, Spark had always had an interest in the subject and became convinced that he had to pursue a career in it. Udi Merioz, an international artist who was a friend of Robin's, encouraged him to try to get into a college, so he started to attend evening classes at the art college and prepared a portfolio for entrance as a full-time student. He was offered a place at the Edinburgh College of Art and started the four-year course in 1983, graduating with a BA. He was then awarded an Andrew Grant Scholarship and became an art tutor while continuing his own painting. In 1989, Spark was awarded an Israel Zangwill scholarship.
Abstract and figurative work
Spark expressed emotion through his predominantly figurative work. He intuitively took liberties with perspective and proportions where doing so helped the composition. There is a strong Jewish feeling in some of his pictures because of his education and family background, and he always signed his paintings in Hebrew. His work also shows the influence of the Scottish colorists, and an interest in the underlying bone and muscle structure of the human body. In his later years his work moved into pure abstract symbolism. Spark used pastels on paper and impasto.
Solo exhibitions
Stenberg Centre for Judaism, London & University Staff Club, Edinburgh
Edinburgh – Marchmont Studio and Gillis Centre Studio.
Lectures on Jews Art EJLS, Council for Christians and Jews and Garnet Hill Centre, Glasgow.
Art Tutor Boroughmuir and various schools and community centres, Edinburgh.
Personal life
Robin and his mother, Muriel Spark, had a strained relationship. They fell out when Robin's Orthodox Judaism prompted him to petition for his late grandmother to be recognised as Jewish. Muriel Spark's maternal grandmother, Adelaide Hyams, had married her maternal grandfather, Tom Uezzell, in a church; so it was not clear whether both of Adelaide's parents were Jewish. His mother reacted by accusing him of seeking publicity to further his career as an artist. During one of her last book signings, in Edinburgh, she responded to an enquiry from a reporter as to whether she would see her son by saying: "I think I know how best to avoid him by now."
