Beardsley, Aubrey

Beardsley, Aubrey (Vincent)

A Footnote (self-portrait), ink on board by Aubrey Beardsley, 1896.

(born Aug. 21, 1872, Brighton, Sussex, Eng.—died March 16, 1898, Menton, Fr.) British illustrator. His only formal training was a few months of evening classes at the Westminster School of Art. His style was based on the work of Edward Burne-Jones and Japanese woodcuts, and he quickly became a master of the curvilinear black-and-white ornamental illustration popularized by the Art Nouveau movement. In 1893 he illustrated an edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, and in 1894 he achieved notoriety with his erotic illustrations for the English version of Oscar Wilde's Salome. He became art editor and illustrator of the new quarterly The Yellow Book that same year. He died at age 25 of tuberculosis.