Biography

Aubrey Beardsley was born in Brighton in 1872. He was ill with tuberculosis since childhood. His talent for drawing was already apparent in elementary school. Shortly thereafter, the first drawings and caricatures were published in the Bristol Grammar School Past and Present newspaper. Beardsley left school in 1888 and worked in London first in an architect's office and then in a life insurance company. At the same time, he continued his education in art and literature. The acquaintance of Edward Burne-Jones meant that Beardsley was now officially able to attend evening classes at Westminster Art School. His own research aroused his interest in Japanese woodcuts, which would shape his work from then on. Beardsley's first published work were illustrations for Thomas Malory's 'Le Mort d'Arthur', 1894. The young artist drew his first drafts for Oscar Wilde's 'Salomé' after reading the original French version of the play in 1893. The motif of Salomé with the head of John the Baptist was published with eight other of his works in the first edition of the art magazine The Studio. Wilde promptly commissioned him to illustrate the English edition of Salome. Due to his illness, which had accompanied him throughout his life, Beardsley went to the south of France in 1897, where he died at the age of only 25 in the Alpes-Maritimes department in 1898.

Objects by Aubrey Beardsley