Salome. A Tragedy in One Act. Inventions by John Vassos. New York: Dutton, 1927. First Edition. Black paper covered boards with gilt title to front board, black & gold patterned endpapers. A nice bright copy.

The illustrator’s acclaimed interpretation of  Wilde’s famous tragedy.

Wilde’s Salome is a masterpiece of the Decadent movement, obsessed with beauty, perversity, artifice, and death. The original publication, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley (1894), captured this with a sharp, sinuous, and grotesquely witty line. John Vassos, however, approaches it from a different artistic moment: the Jazz Age and the dawn of Art Deco.

John Vassos was a Romanian born artist who emigrated to New York. He also illustrated Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol and Harlot’s House. He is best known today for both his art deco industrial designs and illustrated books.