Aubrey Beardsley

by Gilles Néret

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898), a decadent and rebellious fin de sicle dandy who died of tuberculosis at the age of 25, had a lasting impact on Art Nouveau. In just a few years he created a unique lexicon of carnal knowledge in pen and ink and, wielding his remarkable graphic talent like a scalpel, sliced through the hypocrisy of Victorian society.

Genres: Art, 19th Century

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Gilles Néret (1933 - August 3, 2005) was a French art critic and historian, journalist and curator. He wrote extensively on the history of erotica.

He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L’Oeil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Elie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. Since 1992, Néret was an editor for Taschen, for which he has written catalogues raisonnés of the works of Klimt and others, as well as the author of Erotica Universalis.