Born in Brighton in 1872, Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. He had a distinctive and now iconic style, using black ink to create his graphic drawings inspired by Japanese woodcuts. His fascination with the grotesque, the erotic and the decadent made him a controversial figure at the time, but also hugely fashionable. He worked closely with Oscar Wilde, producing illustrations to accompany the English edition of Wilde’s opera, Salome. Instrumental in the beginnings of the Art Nouveau movement, Beardsley was hugely prolific during his tragically short career; he worked seriously for only six years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25.