{beardsley} – Page 8 – { feuilleton }

Beardsley and His Work

Back in 2008 I wrote at some length about Aubrey, an excellent BBC TV dramatisation of the last years of Aubrey Beardsley’s life written by John Selwyn Gilbert, and screened once in 1982. Mr Gilbert himself added a comment to that post in which he mentioned that he’d written and directed a documentary which was screened in tandem with the play, Beardsley and His Work. I have the documentary on tape but it’s a copy of a copy and is also missing ten minutes or so of its opening so it’s good to find that the entire thing is now on YouTube. (Thanks to Dominique for drawing my attention to this.)

Beardsley and His Work is essential viewing for Beardsleyphiles since it’s the only place you’ll see Beardsley scholar Brian Reade—author of the huge monograph, Beardsley (1967)—and Brigid Brophy—author of two excellent studies, Black and White (1968) and Beardsley and His World (1976)—talking at length about the artist. In addition there’s another artist, Ralph Steadman, examining some of Beardsley’s original artwork and discussing the techniques of ink drawing. The fifty-minute film is divided into four chunks, unfortunately, but is otherwise complete:

Part one | part two | part three | part four

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Aubrey Beardsley archive

Wildeana 7

Continuing an occasional series. The drawing above is frequently credited to Aubrey Beardsley in books about Oscar Wilde but receives an “anonymous” attribution in books of Beardsley’s work. The copy here, and the pages below, are from Bibliography of Oscar Wilde (1914) by Stuart Mason.

• Last November it was announced that Wilde’s lipstick-blotched tomb in Père Lachaise cemetery is to be cleaned (again) then shielded from the persistent kissers and graffiti writers by a glass screen. Flickr has a collection of photos showing the earlier condition of the tomb and its embellishments.

• Maria Bustillos in The Vexed Posthumous Life of Oscar Wilde chronicles the story of the blue plaque on Wilde’s former home in Tite Street, London.

• “A hundred and twenty five years ago, Oscar Wilde edited a fashion magazine, his first and only office job. We have yet to learn from the experience.” Wilde in the Office by Kaya Genç.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Oscar Wilde archive

Further echoes of Aubrey

Dorian Gray (1924) by Otto Verhagen (1885–1951).

If you need an idea of the colossal impact Aubrey Beardsley’s drawing had on the art world of the 1890s consider that the entirety of his career—from his first public exposure in The Studio in 1893 to his very untimely death in 1898—lasted a mere five years. Decades afterwards artists around the world were still imitating his style. The later disciples are so numerous and so widespread it’s no surprise if some have yet to be fully acknowledged by subsequent generations. Sander Bink who maintains the Rond1900 site sent copies of these drawings (from Lopende Vuurtjes, Verloren Publishers, 2012) and provided some information about the artists:

Verhagen was a government official for most of his life and seems to have led a very respected life and made his Beardsley-esque work privately, no expositions as far is I know. Gockinga appears to have led a more interesting life: born in Indonesia, lived in Holland 1908–1922, the Indonesia (Java) again, then New York, and the Indonesia and after wwii Amsterdam, probably homosexual. Had one exposition of his work in 1917.

Sander’s site has further examples of Verhagen’s drawings, and he says that both artists were probably inspired by Carel (or Karel) de Nerée, some of whose work was featured here a while back. Always good to have the dots joined. Verhagen’s Dorian Gray is a curious piece; in style it’s a little like the angular drawings that Beresford Egan was producing in the 1920s, while the subject can’t be Dorian himself unless it’s a rendering of his aged portrait. As for Gockinga’s drawing, it’s a lot more faithful to Beardsley’s early style (complete with phallic extrusions) than the poor Nichols fakes that appeared in 1919. If you want a successful forgery it’s always best to find someone with talent.

(Thanks Sander!)

Old lady with ghost (c.1916) by René Gockinga (1893–1962).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Aubrey Beardsley archive
• The illustrators archive
• The Oscar Wilde archive

Mrs Patrick Campbell

The Vampire (1897) by Philip Burne-Jones.

Two pictures of the same woman—Mrs Patrick Campbell (1865–1940)—that were regarded as scandalous in their time. Since the centenary of Bram Stoker’s death recently passed I was looking for better copies of the only painting by Philip Burne-Jones that anyone today bothers with, but the best copies to be had are in books so this is a scan from the Coulthart library. It seems the original is either lost or destroyed which makes its status as poor old Burne-Jones’ most celebrated work doubly unfortunate.

Philip Burne-Jones was the son of Edward Burne-Jones, and Burne-Jones Jr’s depiction of a predatory woman was deemed scandalous not for its content—predatory women were a common fixture of male paranoia in the 1890s—but for the rumours that its model, stage actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, and the artist, were having an affair. Mrs Patrick Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner but took her first husband’s name as her stage name. Given the theme, and the fact that Burne-Jones painting was first exhibited the year that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published, prints of The Vampire are a regular fixture in books about the cultural history of vampires in general and Dracula in particular.

Mrs Patrick Campbell (1894) by Aubrey Beardsley. From The Yellow Book, Vol. I.

As for Aubrey’s delightful drawing, this is one of the many Beardsley pictures that caused great consternation when they were first printed yet which appear today to be quite innocuous. Beardsley’s presence in The Yellow Book, and the umbrage taken against drawings such as this, helped give that publication an edge which it lost when Beardsley was forced to leave the magazine following Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment in 1895.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Symbolist cinema
• Druillet’s vampires

A Wilde Night

A couple more pieces from yesterday’s Posters in Miniature. The drawing above is entitled A Wilde Night and credited to Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866–1946) whose design work has appeared here before. Bragdon was an acquaintance of Will Bradley’s, and like Bradley was a man of many talents being variously employed as an architect, writer and stage designer. Bragdon and Bradley both worked together on The Chap-Book, Herbert Stone’s Chicago periodical which commenced publication in 1894, the same year as The Yellow Book, a magazine whose style and light-hearted content Stone and co. seemed keen to emulate. Bragdon’s small drawings for The Chap-Book are less Beardsley-like than Bradley’s designs which is why this very overt homage appears as a surprise.

Bragdon’s picture is undated but the female figure is taken from Beardsley’s cover for the first issue of The Yellow Book which would place it in around 1894; the satyr-like male is an odd blend of bits of Beardsley’s male and female figures. Aubrey, however, would never have drawn bats like Bragdon’s, or a sleeping policeman…too gauche, my dear. As for the Wildeness, 1894 was only a year away from Oscar’s trial, a time when London was buzzing with scandalous rumours, none of which appear to have reached Chicago.

Also in Posters in Miniature is this piece by another American, Orlando Giannini (1860–1928), a glass designer and another Chicagoan who worked for a while with Frank Lloyd Wright. This design is dated 1895 and struck me with its radical appearance, so very different from the evolving Art Nouveau styles of the time. Giannini’s work as a glass designer evidently brought a different sensibility to graphic design, one which would have still looked bold and original ten years later.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Aubrey Beardsley archive
• The illustrators archive
• The Oscar Wilde archive