There was little that fin-de-siècle artist Aubrey Beardsley's famous gold-nibbed pen could not illustrate--drawings, posters, bookbindings. Though he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25, he left an enormous body of work behind that found a willing audience during his lifetime in the more outré circles of the "naughty '90s" and now symbolizes the decadence of the 1890s. Beardsley possessed an astonishing range of expression, but he is perhaps most famous for his outrageous erotic drawings--many of which adorned such artistic magazines as the
Savoy and the
Yellow Book. He pushed public opinion to the limit with his sequence of graphic illustrations for Aristophanes's
Lysistrata, which, deemed obscene, remained unpublished until 1966.
Biographer Stephen Calloway curated the centenary exhibition of Beardsley's work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London during autumn of 1998. He closely scrutinizes Beardsley's life in the light of his subversive drawings in this in-depth, superbly illustrated biography that coincides with the exhibition.
David Colvin is a man of many talents all of which he employs to the full. He lectures in the history of art; designs books for his own press, Cypher; designs costumes for the Mermaid Theatre and National Theatre; contributes photographs to the Architectual Association library and writes, mainly on the literary characters of the 19th century.