Beardsley, Aubrey, 1872-1898

Illustrator and art editor of The Yellow Book.

Aubrey Beardsley was an innovative and influential English illustrator and author who helped inspire the Art Nouveau movement. He displayed remarkable talent for drawing and music as a child; later, while working as a clerk, he sold a short story, but was encouraged to concentrate on art by Edward Burne-Jones. Beardsley's distinctive, original, and highly idiosyncratic style brought him fame and success, but his provocative drawings were too controversial for Victorian England, and he was forced to flee in the wake of Oscar Wilde's arrest on charges of indecency. He died at the age of twenty-five from the tuberculosis that had plagued him since his youth, leaving behind a legacy of unique and distinctive art that remains popular.

English artist.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was born in Brighton, East Sussex in 1872. His fame was the result of his posters and illustrations for Morte d’Arthur, Salome, Rape of the Lock, and other works as well for the Yellow Book magazine (1894-1896) and his own Book of 50 Drawings, mostly created in black in his individualistic style. He is regarded, along with Oscar Wilde, as a leader of the Decadents’ of the 1890s.

English illustrator and writer.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898), the artist. For fuller details of his life and achievements see the Dictionary of National Biography.

Aubrey Beardsley, English artist, book illustrator, and writer, was born on August 21, 1872 in Brighton, England. He showed signs of intelligence and talent from a young age, developing writing, musical, and drawing skills. Unfortunately, Beardsley was also afflicted with poor health from a young age, infected with tuberculosis by age seven. He tried to work at an insurance company, but his weak lungs prevented him from working there for long. After briefly focusing on his writing, Beardsley began to work more on his drawing. His health improved, and seriously began his artistic career in the early 1890s. In 1892 he received a commission from J.M. Dent to illustrate Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur . This commission allowed him to survive on his drawing alone. In 1894, he created 17 images for Oscar Wilde's Salome, beginning his relationship with the avant-garde. From 1894 to 1895 he worked as art editor for Yellow Book, but fled to France when the Wilde was arrested. Upon his return to London, Beardsley founded a new magazine The Savoy, which included parts of his romantic novel Under the Hill . He illustrated Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Aristophanes' Lysistrata in 1896. Around the same time, Beardsley's health began deteriorating again and he was unable to work continuously. He passed away on March 16, 1898.

Aubrey (Vincent) Beardsley, an English artist, was born in 1872 in Brighton, England to Ellen Agnes Pitt and Vincent Paul Beardsley. After his schooling at Brighton, he worked in an architect's office. He then became a clerk in the office of the Guardian Insurance Company. His first important commision was the illustration of "Morte d'Arthur" written by Sir Thomas Malory, for which he produced over five hundred designs. In 1894, he became art editor of "Yellow Book" which produced and published many of his most original works. Many believe this periodical produced the purest literature of the 1890's. Shortly thereafter he joined the production of the "Savoy" to which he contributed poems and prose. Aubrey Beardsley died on March 16, 1898.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898) was an English artist.

Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator and editor.

English artist, best known for illustrations for Morte d'Arthur, Wilde's Salomé, and the Rape of the lock.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was born in Brighton on 21 August 1872 and early showed artistic ability, acting and playing in concerts with his sister Mabel and producing drawings of recognized merit. The Beardsley family's means were modest, and by 1888 Aubrey had quit school to work as a clerk. At the age of nineteen Aubrey Beardsley embarked on a career as an illustrator, and with the encouragement of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in France and Joseph Pennell in England he quickly made a name for himself. His fame was ensured with the publication of the Dent edition of Malory's Le Morte Darthur in 1892, and by the following year the Beardsley boom was in full flower.

In 1894 Beardsley became the art editor of The Yellow Book under the general editorship of Oscar Wilde, but his advancing tuberculosis and Wilde's arrest put an end to that satirical periodical before 1895 was out. Beardsley's increasingly poor health forced his move from health resort to health resort, but under the patronage of André Raffalovich he continued, despite severe difficulties, to produce his drawings. In 1896 alone he created numerous illustrations for The Savoy, The Rape of the Lock, and Lysistrata.

During 1897 Aubrey Beardsley's health continued to decline as serious work became increasingly difficult and his creative output dwindled. His death occurred at Menton, France, on 16 March 1898.

Adolphe Gladstone Millott Severn was a British physician as well as a student and collector of Beardsley.

English artist and illustrator.

Beardsley, born in 1872 in England, suffered from tuberculosis much of his life. He trained at the Westminster School of Art (1891). Beardsley's unique illustrations were characterized by dramatic blacks and whites and adapted well to a new printing method using metal instead of wood blocks. Notably, Beardsley illustrated Thomas Malloy's Morte d'Arthur (1893), Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1894), Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock (1896), Aristophanes' Lysistrata (1896), and Ben Jonson's Volpone (1898). While artistically innovative, Beardsley's designs were controversially erotic and cruel in emphasis. Beardsley converted to Catholicism (1897) and succumbed to tuberculosis the following year at age twenty-five.