The gloriously indecent life and art of Aubrey Beardsley

Picture the young aspirant with the portfolio of drawings pitching up nervously at the eminent artist’s studio, only to be turned away at the door by a servant; then the master catching up with him, inviting him in and delivering the verdict on his portfolio: ‘I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession; but in your case I can do nothing else.’

Within two short years of this fairy-tale meeting in the summer of 1891 between Edward Burne-Jones and the 18-year-old Aubrey Beardsley, the self-taught insurance clerk who had fallen under the Pre-Raphaelite spell had turned himself into the most talked-about artist in London. Van Gogh made history in a brief ten years; the consumptive Beardsley, who didn’t choose the manner of his death, had to be quicker. From the moment he set his heart on ‘oof and fame’ there was a breathless urgency to his ambition, disguised under an affected lassitude.