# Ruskin Spear artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/ruskin-spear/
Profile generated: 2026-05-09T13:29:37.301Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1911-06-30
- Death date: 1990-01-17
- Nationality: British, English
- Movements: Twentieth-century British figurative painting
- Common media: Oil painting, Works on paper

## About Ruskin Spear

Ruskin Spear (1911–1990) was a British painter and art teacher celebrated as one of the leading portraitists of mid-twentieth-century Britain. Born in Hammersmith, London, he enrolled at the Royal College of Art in 1931 and later returned to teach there from 1948 until 1975, shaping a generation of post-war British artists. Appointed CBE and elected a Royal Academician, Spear built a reputation for incisive, unpretentious portraiture and vivid figurative scenes drawn from everyday London life. His work is held by major public collections including Tate. With nearly five hundred auction appearances recorded, Spear's paintings surface regularly on the secondary market, making him a familiar name for collectors of modern British art.

## Common works and media

Spear's output spans oil portraits, figure compositions, genre scenes of London life, and still-life paintings. Works on paper including drawings and watercolours also appear at auction. His portraits range from informal studies of friends and family to formal commissioned sittings. Collectors most frequently encounter mid-sized oil-on-canvas portraits and domestic interior scenes dating from the 1940s through the 1980s.

## Market and appraisal context

Ruskin Spear's work appears consistently at auction, particularly in British and European painting sales. Portraits — especially commissioned likenesses of notable sitters — tend to command the strongest interest, while his genre scenes and still-life subjects trade at more accessible levels. Key valuation factors include the sitter's identity, provenance clarity, painting size and medium, condition, and whether the work dates from his recognized mature period. Collectors should verify attribution carefully, as no single catalogue raisonné was identified. Works held in or formerly held by institutional collections such as Tate may carry a provenance premium.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine structured artist identity research from library authorities and museum collections with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Sources for this page include Tate, the Library of Congress, Getty ULAN, VIAF, RKD, and Wikidata.

## Sources

- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84180292
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ruskin-spear-1973
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500009628
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/95739849/
- RKD: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/74158
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7380963
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruskin_Spear