Beardsley (Aubrey) Collection, 1884-2003

Summary

Creators:

Beardsley, Aubrey, 1872-1898

Abstract:

This guide describes the Clark Library's collection of Aubrey Beardsley material, and includes original drawings, prints, prospectuses for published works, posters, and portfolios of published prints.

Extent:

1.92 Linear feet (2 boxes)

Language:

English .

Background

Scope and content:

This collection consists of the Clark Library's collection of Aubrey Beardsley material, and is an artificial collection, built over time and from many acquisition sources. Items include original drawings, prints, prospectuses for published works, posters, and portfolios of published prints.

Biographical / historical:

Aubrey Beardsley was born in Brighton, England in 1872 to Ellen Agnus Pitt and Vincent Paul Beardsley. Vincent had inherited a small fortune from his father, but had lost most of it by the time Aubrey and his older sister Mabel were born. Their family (which also included sister Mabel, born in 1871) moved from Brighton to London in 1883 and struggled economically, as Vincent worked unsuccessfully in a variety of clerical jobs. Aubrey contracted tuberculosis when he was 7, though his case was mild for most of his childhood; his first real outbreak came in 1889. He left school in 1888 and found work as a clerk. Soon after, he began drawing and studied art briefly at the Westminster School of Art. After being discovered by art journalist Aymer Vallance in 1892, Aubrey began creating a public persona for himself and establishing his black-and-white linear drawing style, which was particularly suited to new developments in printing. Throughout the early 1890s, Beardsley's fame and notoriety continued to grow, as he illustrated Oscar Wilde's Salome and co-founded the magazine The Yellow Book. His often erotic and grotesque work, as well as his eccentric persona were often controversial, and his association with Wilde somewhat damaged his reputation after Wilde's 1895 arrest for "gross indecency." Beardsley's health became increasingly worse after 1896, and he died in Menton, France in 1898 at the age of 25.

Sources consulted:

* "Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1821 , accessed January 2023.

* Matthew Sturgis, Chapter 1 excerpt of "Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography", New York Times Book Review (online). New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sturgis-beardsley.html , accessed January 2023.

Acquisition information:

This collection is an artificial collection built over time by Clark Library staff; it did not originate in one single purchase. Where known, accession numbers and acquisition information is cited for each item in the container listing below.

Processing information:

This collection was previously inventoried and described in a series of in-house Clark Library guides beginning around 1998. Many items included here retain previous call number information written in pencil on the items themselves.

The collection was physically rehoused and re-described in August 2023 by Rebecca Fenning Marschall.

Arrangement:

Items are arranged in roughly chronological order.

Physical location:

Clark Library.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Restrictions:

Collection open for research.

Terms of access:

The Clark Library owns the property rights to its collections but does not hold the copyright to these materials and therefore cannot grant or deny permission to use them. Researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials they may wish to use, investigating the owner of the copyright, and obtaining permission for their intended publication or other use. In all cases, you must cite the Clark Library as the source with the following credit line: The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Location of this collection:

UCLA, Clark (William Andrews) Memorial Library

2520 Cimarron Street

Los Angeles, CA 90018, US

Contact:

(310) 794-5155

clark@humnet.ucla.edu

Website

Background

Scope and content:

Two inscriptions on verso: "Drawn by Aubrey Beardsley at the age of 12 years and given to W. W. Hindsmith in 1885" and "Note: He was a fag [sic] to Hindsmith at school." Purchase, Quaritch, 1967 (MS.1967.008).

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Woodblock prints for 'The New Coinage. Four designs which were not sent in for competition', published in 'The Pall Mall Budget', 9 February 1893, page 154. Purchase, G.F. Sims, 1950 (MS.1950.050).

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From the collection of Henry Wallis. Purchase, Dailey Rare Books, 1978 (MS.1978.001).

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Purchase, G.F. Sims, 1950 (MS.1950.050).

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Purchase, Maxwell Hunley, 1949 (MS.1949.004).

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Purchase, Maxwell Hunley, 1949 (MS.1949.004).

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Purchase, G.F. Sims, 1950 (MS.1950.050).

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Purchase, Percy Dobell, 1923 (MS.1923.003).

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Original copperplate for an illustration not used in Lucian's True history. With 1996 fax from Linda Gertner Zatlin confirming the title of the piece. Purchase, Hamill and Barker, 1962 (MS.1962.009).

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Purchase, Maxwell Hunley, 1949 (MS.1949.004).

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Purchase, Maggs, 1922 (MS.1922.003).

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Cover illustrated by Beardsley. Purchase, C.S. Millard, 1923 (MS.1923.002).

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Front cover detached. Purchase, 1926 (MS.1926.004).

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Purchase, H.W. Edwards, 1959 (MS.1959.012). Detached covers.

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Purchase, Hamill & Barker, 1964 (MS.1964.008).

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Frontispiece design by Beardsley.

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With envelope from 1947 purchase (accession MS.1947.003).

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Original pink folder from acquisition included.

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Purchase, Maxwell Hunley, 1949 (MS.1949.004).

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Original photograph of Beardsley working in the Menton hotel room where he later died. Lengthy inscription by Max Beerbohm dated 1925 on verso: "This photograph of Aubrey Beardsley was taken in the bedroom of an hotel at Mentone [sic] -- the room in which he died. It was given to me either by his mother or by his sister. The Mantegnas are a queer contrast with the wall-paper and the furniture; the contrast must have delighted him greatly. Tragically frail and dying tho' he looks here, my memory is that he looked hardly less so when I first met him. Max Beerbohm, 1925." Purchase, David Magee, 1961 (MS.1961.015).

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Scope and content:

torn corner. Purchase, Hamill & Barker, 1964 (MS.1964.008).

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Undated. Apparently never published. Includes specimen page of Beardsley biography. Original acquired with Thomas Perry Stricker Papers, 1948 (MS.1948.004).

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Original pink folder from acquisition included.

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Illustrated cover by Beardsley. Purchase, Dawson's Book Shop, 1945 (MS.1945.010).

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Purchase, Elkin Mathews, 1950 (MS.1950.051). From Mathews Quarto no. 8 (1950), item 21. Formerly in the collection of Rainforth Armitage Walker.

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Number 1643 in the Haldeman-Julius "Little Blue Book" series.

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Purchase, Maxwell Hunley, 1949 (MS.1949.004). Illustration from Venus and Tannhauser by Beardsley.

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Scope and content:

Portrait property of National Portrait Gallery of London.

Background

Scope and content:

Includes carbons of acquisition cards and typed inventories from approximately 1998-2003.