Edwardian Ball 2026
18 x 35
Edition of 200
5 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

This poster is officially available at the show in SF. I will make a limited online launch of my Edwardian Ball 2026 poster through EQL opening on Monday, February 2, 2026 at 9 am PST. The launch closes on Wednesday, February 4, 2026 at 9 am PST.

Visit the launch page for the release (Set a Launch Reminder):

JOIN EQL RELEASE

I made this year’s poster over-the-top to celebrate the Edwardian Ball on its 25th Anniversary. It’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

I try to channel the spirit of our age in a non-linear way with each year’s Edwardian Ball poster, making allegory, or touching a simple parallel between our 21st Century experience and the far-away world of Edwardian “Society.” 

This year’s poster is a portrait of Lillie Langtry — secret mistress of Edwardian Era’s namesake King Edward VII. My poster from 2023 featured his portrait [see post]. As I mentioned, Edward was a cad’s cad, and was known as “Dirty Bertie”.

Lillie Langtry was remarkable woman and led a colorful public life: professional beauty, royal mistress, actress, racehorse owner, gambler and squanderer of fortunes, eventual Lady of a Baronet, Oscar Wilde’s friend, and royal consort. She shocked discrete society as Prince of Wales’ lover — before he ascended to the throne as King Edward. 

Lillie was the quintessential “Professional Beauty” a new class of glamorous royal socialite in late Victorian circles, who parlayed her charms into Edward’s arms, and parleyed that vantage into building a huge mansion in Bournemouth called the Red House — a luxurious lover’s nest — paid for by Edward Prince of Wales. 

Edward lavished her with expensive gifts, jewels and mountains of cash. The soon-to-be-King gave her a magnificent Egyptian Revival necklace bedecked with jeweled winged scarabs, and she wore it on stage for her role as Cleopatra.

There was a prolific and lurid correspondence between Lillie and her captivated royal lover. When Edward ascended to the throne, finding those letters became the Epstein Files Scandal of the Edwardian Era. Without the letters as evidence, King Edward and Lillie Langtry’s affair was said to have not existed, would have been redacted from history.

Most were destroyed by the Royal Family, its stuffy minions in the bowels of the royal palace, or by Miss Langtry, but a few slipped into hiding. Some surviving notes and letters always slip through un-redacted. One particular exchange — had it been made public during Edward’s reign — would have left no doubt about the torrid lovers. King Edward wrote: “I’ve spent enough on you to build a battleship!” To which Lillie is said to have replied: “And you’ve spent enough in me to float one!”