Beardsley, Aubrey

Aubrey Beardsley played a big part within the art nouveau era; he was the leading English illustrator of the 1890s mostly known for his unusual grotesque erotica. Most of his work features nude women and huge genitals, which are slightly odd, but you can see how his style of using elegant mark making reflects that of the art nouveau movement.
Beardsley tended only to work in black and white ink this gave him a unique illustrative slightly Japanese influenced style, which enhanced his attention to detail. His work was published in many books, his most famous being Oscar Wildes play Salome, although there are seen to be 2 types of illustrations for this, one being clean and one being erotic as the publishers did not agree with the nudity included in the illustrations.
Aubrey also became editor for “The yellow book” but only stayed with them for a year and later joined their rival book “Savoy”.

Bibliography:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&um=1&q=aubrey+beardsley&sa=N&start=0&ndsp=21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley
The best works of Aubrey Beardsley (Dover Pictorial Archive Series) by Aubrey Beardsley ISBN-10: 0486262731 ISBN-13: 978-0486262734
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57391/Aubrey-Beardsley

Leah Beecham