Aubrey Beardsley (1872 –1898) was an English illustrator and author and one of the most significant contributors to the development of the Art Nouveau/Modern Styles. Beardsley’s black ink drawings were influenced by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Japanese woodcuts which had become hugely fashionable in Paris where he lived for a time.  

He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde, a great friend and supporter, and James Whistler. His most famous works included illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Thomas Malory’s La Morte D’Arthur and Alexander Pope’s The Rape of The Lock. 

Beardlsley sought to emphasise the decadent and the sexually absurd in his work and played with the idea of beauty in the shocking or repugnant,  He was a public as well as private eccentric. He said "I have one aim - the grotesque.  If I am not grotesque, I am nothing."  Beardsley's work continued to cause controversy in Britain long after his death. During an exhibition of his work at the V&A in London in 1966, a private gallery in London was raided by the police for exhibiting copies of the same prints on display at the museum, and the owner charged under obscenity laws.

He died of tuberculosis at the age of only 25.