Queer Places:
31 Buckingham Rd, Brighton BN1 3RP, Regno Unito
Bristol Grammar School, University Rd, Bristol BS8 1SR, Regno Unito
Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, 205 Dyke Rd, Hove BN3 6EG, Regno Unito
Westminster School, Little Dean's Yard, Great Smith St, Westminster, London SW1P 3PF, Regno Unito
114 Cambridge St, Pimlico, London SW1V, Regno Unito
Cimetière du Trabuquet, Chemin du Trabuquet, 06500 Menton, Francia
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an
English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the
style of
Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic.
He was a leading figure in the
Aesthetic movement which also included
Oscar
Wilde and
James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of
the
Art Nouveau and
poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before
his early death from tuberculosis.
Beardsley was born in
Brighton,
England, on 21 August 1872, and christened on 24 October 1872.[2]
His father, Vincent Paul Beardsley (1839–1909), was the son of a tradesman;
Vincent had no trade himself, and relied on a private income from an
inheritance that he received from his maternal grandfather when he was 21.[3]
Vincent's wife, Ellen Agnus Pitt (1846–1932), was the daughter of Surgeon-Major
William Pitt of the Indian Army. The Pitts were a well-established and
respected family in Brighton, and Beardsley's mother married a man of lesser
social status than might have been expected. Soon after their wedding, Vincent
was obliged to sell some of his property in order to settle a claim for his "breach
of promise" from another woman who claimed that he had promised to marry
her.[4]
At the time of his birth, Beardsley's family, which included his sister
Mabel who was one year older, were living in Ellen's familial home at 12
Buckingham Road. The number of the house in Buckingham Road was 12, but the
numbers were changed years ago, and it is now 31.[5]
In 1883 his family settled in London, and in the following year he appeared
in public as an "infant musical phenomenon", playing at several concerts with
his sister.[6]
In January 1885 he began to attend
Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School, where he would spend the next
four years. His first poems, drawings, and cartoons appeared in print in "Past
and Present", the school's magazine. In 1888 he obtained a post in an
architect's
office, and afterwards one in the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company. In
1891, under the advice of
Sir Edward Burne-Jones and
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, he took up art as a profession. In 1892 he
attended the classes at the
Westminster School of Art, then under Professor
Fred Brown.[6]
In 1892, Beardsley travelled to Paris, where he discovered the poster art
of
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints,
both of which would be major influences on his own style. Beardsley's first
commission was
Le Morte d'Arthur by
Thomas Malory (1893), which he illustrated for the publishing house
J. M.
Dent and Company.[8]
by Jacques-émile Blanche, 1895
Bristol Grammar School
His six years of major creative output can be divided into several periods,
identified by the form of his signature. In the early period his work is
mostly unsigned. During 1891 and 1892 he progressed to using his initials,
A.V.B. In mid-1892, the period of Le Morte d'Arthur and The Bon
Mots he used a Japanese-influenced mark which became progressively more
graceful, sometimes accompanied by A.B. in block capitals.[9]
He co-founded
The Yellow Book with American writer
Henry Harland, and for the first four editions he served as Art Editor and
produced the cover designs and many illustrations for the magazine. He was
also closely aligned with
Aestheticism, the British counterpart of
Decadence and
Symbolism. Most of his images are done in ink and feature large dark areas
contrasted with large blank ones, and areas of fine detail contrasted with
areas with none at all.
Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the
Art
Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque
erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. His illustrations were
in black and white, against a white background. Some of his drawings, inspired
by Japanese
shunga artwork, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic
illustrations concerned themes of history and
mythology;
these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition of
Aristophanes'
Lysistrata, and his drawings for
Oscar
Wilde's play
Salome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. Other major
illustration projects included an 1896 edition of
The Rape of the Lock by
Alexander Pope, and the collection A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey
Beardsley (1897).[8]
He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (e.g. for
a deluxe edition of Sir
Thomas Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur) and worked for magazines such as
The Studio and
The Savoy, of which he was a co-founder. As a co-founder of The Savoy,
Beardsley was able to pursue his writing as well as illustration, and a number
of his writings, including
Under the Hill (a story based on the
Tannhäuser legend) and “The Ballad of a Barber” appeared in the magazine.[10]
Beardsley was a
caricaturist and did some political cartoons, mirroring Wilde's irreverent
wit in art. Beardsley's work reflected the
decadence
of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the
French Symbolists, the
Poster art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art
Nouveau artists such as Pape and Clarke. Some alleged works of Beardsley's
were published in a book titled Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley,
Selected From the Collection of Mr. H. S. Nicols. These were later
discovered to be forgeries, distinguishable by their almost pornographic
erotic elements, rather than Beardsley's somewhat more subtle use of
sexuality.[11]
Beardsley was a public as well as private eccentric. He said, "I have one
aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing." Wilde said he had "a
face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair."[12]
Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow
gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a
morning coat and
patent leather
pumps.
Although Beardsley was associated with the
homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes,
the details of his sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as
asexual. Speculation about his sexuality includes rumours of an incestuous
relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her
brother and miscarried.[13][14]
During his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of tuberculosis. He
suffered frequent lung haemorrhages and was often unable to work or leave his
home.
Beardsley converted to Roman
Catholicism in March 1897, and subsequently begged his publisher,
Leonard Smithers and close friend
Herbert Charles Pollitt, to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata and
bad drawings... by all that is holy all obscene drawings." Both men
ignored Beardsley’s wishes,[15][16]
and Smithers actually continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of
Beardsley's work.[9]
In 1897 deteriorating health prompted his move to the French Riviera, where
he died a year later on 16 March 1898 of
tuberculosis at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in
Menton,
France, attended by his mother and sister. He was just 25 years old. Following
a Requiem Mass in Menton Cathedral the following day, his remains were
interred in the adjacent cemetery.[17]
In the BBC 1982
Playhouse drama Aubrey, written by
John Selwyn Gilbert, Beardsley was portrayed by actor
John Dicks. The drama concerned Beardsley's life from the time of Oscar
Wilde’s arrest in April 1895, which resulted in Beardsley losing his position
at The Yellow Book, to his death from tuberculosis in 1898.[18]
Beardsley is also featured on the cover of
The
Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
My published books:
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