Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent

Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent (1872-1898), English artist, whose sensitive, highly imaginative style and hedonistic, occasionally macabre subject matter place him within the European fin-de-siècle artistic movement. In his short life (his productive career spanned only six years), Beardsley achieved a reputation as one of England's most innovative illustrators.

Beardsley, born in Brighton, briefly attended Westminster School of Art in London. Other than this short period of formal training, he was self-taught. By the age of 20 he was receiving commissions. Characteristic of his work are large areas of black and white, hard, curving lines, rich ornamentation, and a disregard of conventional perspective and proportion. Recognizable influences include the great Japanese printmakers and the Pre-Raphaelite painters. The fantastic and occasionally erotic nature of his illustrations aroused great controversy.

Beardsley was art editor of the celebrated periodical The Yellow Book (1894-1895) and of The Savoy (1896), both of which featured his work. He illustrated Le Morte d'Arthur (1893-1894) by Sir Thomas Malory, Salomé (1894) by Oscar Wilde, The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1894-1895), Lysistrata (1896) by Aristophanes, and Volpone (1898) by Ben Jonson. He also designed posters and wrote fiction and poetry, which was collected and published posthumously as Under the Hill (1904). A lifelong victim of tuberculosis, he died in Menton, France, at the age of 25. His distinctive style remained a powerful influence on graphic design in Europe and the United States.