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- Aubrey Beardsley
- Also known as
-
Aubrey Beardsley
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primary name: Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1872-1898
- Biography
- Artist and illustrator of the fin-de-siècle. Born in Brighton, Sussex and from an early age suffered from tuberculosis. Attended Brighton Grammar School and was encouraged by his house master in drawing. Left school in 1888 and took a job as a clerk in London and attended evening classes at Westminster School of Art. A year later ill health forced him to leave his job. He was encouraged by Edward Burne Jones (q.v.) to take up art professionally. Commissioned in 1892 by J M Dent to illustrate Sir Thomas Malory's 'Morte d'Arthur', and in 1894 illustrated Oscar Wilde's 'Salome'. Contributed to art magazines, notably 'The Studio'. Appointed editor of the 'Yellow Book', the 'literary and artristic quarterly' but his association with Wilde - and the scandal of his arrest in 1895 - led to his dismissal by the publisher, John Lane. He tempoarily fled to France. On his return to London he worked with a new publisher, Leonard Smithers, and together with the poet, Arthur Symond, they launched the magazine, 'The Savoy'. In 1896 he illustrated Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock' and the same year, drawings for 'Lysistrata'. He died of comsumption in Menton, France.
- Bibliography
- Reade, Brian: 'Aubrey Beardsley', Studio Vista London, 1967
H.Maas & J.L.Duncan, Letters of AB, 1971
Crawford, Alan: 'A V B 1872-1898' Oxford Dictionary of Biography
Gertler Zatlin, Linda, 'Aubrey Beardsley - A Catalogue Raisonnne', Yale Books, 2016 (rev.Owens, PA 2017, pp.349-53).
