Curt Moreck [pseudonym for Konrad Haemmerling, 1888-1957], Meister der Erotik in der Kunst (=Master of Eroticism in Art). Aubrey Beardsley. Ein Blatt zu Lukians wahrer Geschichte. Zwei Blätter zu Wilde’s Salomé. Juvenal geisselt das Weib. Ein Blatt zu Lysistrata Vignete … (Privatdruck, MCMXX [1920]). Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a privately printed limited edition of prints by Audrey Beardsley. This small (229 × 225 mm) volume in a dark green paper wrapper holds five prints from different series and a few pages of text.

The item was ingeniously found by Simon Beattie, who notes that the previous year Haemmerling had produced a new German translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, which was published, with Beardsley’s illustrations, by Heinrich Böhme in Hanover. Here, Haemmerling writes about sin and sensuality, championing Beardsley’s work for its “way of viewing the world and people with alarming insight.”