Max Beerbohm

for Vanity Fair in 1897]]

Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm (August 24, 1872 – May 20, 1956) was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.

Early life

From 1881 to 1885 Max — he was always called simply 'Max' and it is thus that he signed his drawings — attended the day school of a Mr Wilkinson in Orme Square. Mr Wilkinson, Beerbohm later said, ‘gave me my love of Latin and thereby enabled me to write English’. Mrs Wilkinson taught drawing to the students, the only lessons Beerbohm ever had in the subject. Though he was an unenthusiastic student academically, Beerbohm became a well-known figure in Oxford social circles. He also began submitting articles and caricatures to London publications, which were met enthusiastically. In March 1893 he submitted an article on Oscar Wilde to the Anglo-American Times under the pen name 'An American'. Later in 1893 his essay 'The Incomparable Beauty of Modern Dress' was published in the Oxford journal The Spirit Lamp by its editor, Lord Alfred Douglas.

By 1894, having developed his personality as a dandy and humorist, and already a rising star in English letters, he left Oxford without a degree. on whose staff he remained until 1910. At that time the Saturday Review was undergoing renewed popularity under its new owner, the writer Frank Harris, who would later become a close friend of Beerbohm's. It was Shaw, in his final Saturday Review piece, who bestowed upon Beerbohm the lasting epithet, "the Incomparable Max"

In 1904 Beerbohm met the American actress Florence Kahn. In 1910 they married and moved to Rapallo in Italy, partly as an escape from the social demands and the expense of living in London. Here they remained for the rest of their lives except for the duration of World War I and World War II, when they returned to Britain, and occasional trips to England to take part in exhibitions of his drawings. In his years in Rapallo Beerbohm was visited by many of the eminent men and women of his day, including Ezra Pound, who lived nearby, Somerset Maugham, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Truman Capote among others. Beerbohm never learned to speak Italian in the five decades that he lived in Italy.

He was influenced by French cartoonists such as 'Sem' (:fr:Georges Goursat) and 'Caran d'Ache' (Emmanuel Poir). Beerbohm was hailed by The Times in 1913 as "the greatest of English comic artists", by Bernard Berenson as "the English Goya", and by Edmund Wilson as "the greatest...portrayer of personalities - in the history of art".

Usually inept with hands and feet, Beerbohm excelled in heads and with dandified male costume of a period whose elegance became a source of nostalgic inspiration. His collections of caricatures included Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen (1896), The Poets' Corner (1904), Fifty Caricatures (1913) and Rossetti and His Circle (1922). His caricatures were published widely in the fashionable magazines of the time, and his works were exhibited regularly in London at the Carfax Gallery (1901-8) and Leicester Galleries (1911–57). At his Rapallo home he drew and wrote infrequently and decorated books in his library. These were sold at auction by Sotheby's of London on 12 and 13 December 1960 following the death of his second wife and literary executor Elisabeth Jungmann. David Cecil wrote that, "though he showed no moral disapproval of homosexuality, [Beerbohm] was not disposed to it himself; on the contrary he looked upon it as a great misfortune to be avoided if possible." Cecil quotes a letter from Beerbohm to Oscar Wilde's friend Robert Ross in which he asks Ross to keep Reggie Turner from the clutches of Lord Alfred Douglas, "I really think Reg is at a rather crucial point of his career - and should hate to see him fall an entire victim to the love that dare not tell its name."

There was also some speculation during his lifetime that Beerbohm was Jewish. Muggeridge assumed that Beerbohm's Jewishness was certain. Beerbohm responded to the allegation by saying that, disappointingly for him, he was not. However, both of his wives were German Jews. When asked by George Bernard Shaw if he had any Jewish ancestors, Beerbohm replied: "That my talent is rather like Jewish talent I admit readily... But, being in fact a Gentile, I am, in a small way, rather remarkable, and wish to remain so." In his poem Hugh Selwyn Mauberley Ezra Pound, a neighbour in Rapallo, caricatured Beerbohm as 'Brennbaum', a Jewish artist.

He was knighted by George VI in 1939; it was thought that this token of esteem had been delayed by his mockery in 1911 of the king's parents, about whom he had written a satiric verse. In 1942 the Maximilian Society was created in Beerbohm's honour, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Formed by a London drama critic, it was made up of 70 distinguished members, and planned to add one more member on each of Beerbohm's successive birthdays. In their first meeting a banquet was held to pay homage to the great man, and he was presented with seventy bottles of wine.

Beerbohm was cremated in Genoa and his ashes were interred in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, London on 29 June 1956.

Media Portrayals

Books of Max Beerbohm's works

Written works

Collections of caricatures

Further reading

See also

Notes

External links

Category:Max Beerbohm Category:1872 births Category:1956 deaths Category:Beerbohm family Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Category:Burials at St Paul's Cathedral Category:English caricaturists Category:English humorists Category:English novelists Category:English people of German descent Category:English people of Lithuanian descent Category:English people of Dutch descent Category:Knights Bachelor Category:New Latin-language writers Category:Old Carthusians Category:Oscar Wilde