Exhibit:
In a 1908 interview that appeared in The Strand, illustrator Sidney H. Sime claims his work was deeply influenced by his own "omnivorous and indiscriminate reading" (notably including works by Poe and De Quincey), by illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, and by Japanese art. According to Sime, Beardsley's morbid temperament and "extraordinary" technique had undoubtedly influenced himself and nearly every one of his contemporary illustrators. He claimed that the same was also true of Japanese Art. An illustrator of things morbid, strange, fantastical, and occult, it is fitting that Sime would come to illustrate literary works of fantasy, occult, and the weird, including fantasy works by Lord Dunsany and the weird/horror tales of Arthur Machen, an author whose early works were also illustrated by Beardsley. In this exhibit, we explore how both Beardsley and Sime contributed to the difficult work of visualizing strange, unseen worlds and chilling, ineffable horrors that (as Machen was fond of telling readers) are unspeakable, unnameable, even unimaginable.