Aubrey Beardsley was brought up in Brighton, moving to London with his family in 1883. He began his working life in an architect’s office but, on the advice of the artist Edward Burne-Jones, applied to study art at Westminster School of Art. Breadsley is best known for his pen and ink drawings which captured the elegance and grotesque in Art Nouveau through illustrations for books and magazines. His professional life as an artist lasted a mere six years and he died of tuberculosis aged 25.