Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator and author who lived far too brief a life, from 1872 to 1898. Beardsley is most associated with the Art Nouveau and the Aesthetic movements in which he was a leading figure.
Beardsley was noticeably gifted from a very young age and was known as an “infant musical phenomenon” after performing public concerts with his sister. He was sick as a child, and first got tuberculosis at age 6. During these early years, Beardsley was quite productive. At age 12, his drawings and cartoons were published in his school newspaper. At age 13, Beardsley dabbled in playwriting, even acting in some of the parts. At age 16, he got a job at an architect’s office. He again contracted tuberculosis at age 17, but this didn’t stop his momentum.
At age 19, after receiving advice from well-known artist Edward Burne-Jones, Beardsley decided to pursue art full time. His only formal training was a few months of night classes at the Westminster School of Art. At 20, Beardsley traveled to France where he encountered the poster work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Japanese prints that were quite fashionable at this time. These heavily influenced him.
At age 21, Aubrey Beardsley got his first commission work; illustrating Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. He continued working on commissions, illustrating for magazines and books, and was seen as actually very controversial in his day. His works were often erotic, dark, and sometimes bordering on the grotesque. A lot of his more pornographic work was inspired by the Japanese shunga prints. Beardsley co-founded the magazine, ‘The Savoy,’ which allowed him a chance at writing in addition to his illustrations.
Beardsley was seen as an eccentric and often hung out in the alternative social circles including the clique of Oscar Wilde. Just a year before his death, he converted to Roman Catholicism and begged his publisher to destroy all his “obscene drawings” which his publisher ultimately ignored. He was plagued his whole life by health afflictions, including painful lung hemorrhages. In 1898, at just 25 years old, Aubrey Beardsley died from tuberculosis, which had recurred in him throughout the latter years of his life.
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