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Aubrey Beardsley

4 of 8 portraits of Aubrey Beardsley

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Aubrey Beardsley

by Frederick Henry Evans
platinum print, 1894
5 7/8 in. x 4 1/8 in. (149 mm x 105 mm)
Given by Robert R. Steele, 1939
Primary Collection
NPG P115

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Frederick Henry Evans (1852-1943), Photographer; member of 'The Linked Ring'. Artist or producer of 13 portraits.

This portraitback to top

A friend and patron of Beardsley, Evans was responsible for obtaining some of his earliest commissions for book illustrations. Beardsley wrote to Evans of these portraits on 20 August 1894: 'I think the photos are splendid; couldn't be better'.

Related worksback to top

  • NPG P114: Aubrey Beardsley (variant version)

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 38 Read entry

    This portrait of the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) was taken by his friend and patron Frederick Henry Evans (1852-1943) at the time when the young artist was gaining notoriety for his scandalous illustrations for the first English-language edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, published in 1894. Evans took up photography in the mid-1880s while running a bookshop in Cheapside, London. He is reported to have spent hours studying Beardsley, wondering how best to approach his subject. In this carefully lit composition, Beardsley peers out from under his combed fringe, highlighting his delicate bone structure. Evans commented at the time that Beardsley’s profile, also shown here in a variant pose (P114), reminded him of a gargoyle - much to Beardsley’s pleasure.

  • 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 39 Read entry

    This portrait of the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) was taken by his friend and patron Frederick Henry Evans (1852-1943) at the time when the young artist was gaining notoriety for his scandalous illustrations for the first English-language edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, published in 1894. Evans took up photography in the mid-1880s while running a bookshop in Cheapside, London. He is reported to have spent hours studying Beardsley, wondering how best to approach his subject. In this carefully lit composition, Beardsley peers out from under his combed fringe, highlighting his delicate bone structure. Evans commented at the time that Beardsley’s profile, also shown here in a variant pose (P114), reminded him of a gargoyle - much to Beardsley’s pleasure.

  • Smartify image discovery app
  • Callow, Simon, Oscar Wilde and his Circle, 2013, p. 64
  • Callow, Simon, Character Sketches: Oscar Wilde and His Circle, 2000, p. 59
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 41

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1894back to top

Current affairs

Following Gladstone's resignation, Queen Victoria calls on the Liberal MP Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery to become Prime Minister, a position he reluctantly accepts. His government is largely unsuccessful as the Tory-dominated House of Lords stop the whole of the Liberal's domestic legislation, and his foreign policy plans are defeated by internal Liberal disagreements.

Art and science

The Prince of Wales opens Tower Bridge, built over the Thames to improve access to the growing commercial district of the East End. The bridge was constructed from two bascules, or leaves, which could be raised to allow ships to pass underneath.
Rudyard Kipling's hugely popular collection of children's stories and poems, The Jungle Book, is published. The stories, based on Kipling's own experiences in India, have been adapted many times.

International

The arrest and court-martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer, opens up divisions in France over anti-semitism continuing until Dreyfus's exoneration in 1906. The French President Sadi Carnot is assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Lyon.
Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia following the death of Alexander III.
Japan and China go to war over control of Korea, with the more modern Japanese army winning an easy victory.

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