Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872–1898) was a fashionable English illustrator and author associated with the Aesthetic Movement and development of the Art Nouveau style. Known today and in his time as a master of black-ink line work executed with supple fluidity and slashing vigor, Beardsley veered away from Victorian convention. His fantastic illustrations expressed his appreciation of the unexpected, the erotic, the dark and decadent. Although he struggled with ill-health throughout his brief life—he was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and died of the disease at 25—Beardsley was a prolific and well-known artist, and by his early twenties was the art editor of The Yellow Book, an avant-garde literary quarterly. His audacious style influenced artists of diverse genres and continues to captivate audiences to this day.
