'Absolutely hideous’: new London sculpture of Oscar Wilde condemned by his grandson

Almost as bad as the Lucy one.

Sadly, this sculpture is nowhere near the most horrible rubbish that Paolozzi produced. Most of his other sculptures are much worse, and his "paintings" are downright horrifying. He was a comic book artist who knew how to sell himself as a genius and contributed to cheapen contemporary art like few others. If we have had worthless prestidigitators like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, David Hockney and Tracey Emin, it's partly thanks to his legitimization of trashy, juvenile pseudo-art as an extension of the Major Arts.

I'm kind of amazed that WIlde, who was born in 1854, has a grandchild who is still alive.

It would be nice if a non-homophobe sculpted Wilde, a non-Chinese-national sculpted Martin Luther King (see DC atrocity), and a sighted person sculpted Queen Elizabeth II (see Antrim Castle Gardens).

As for me, my only quibbles are that I was much more gifted than my sculptor in Florence showed, and I was, for the record, circumcised. LOVE my hair.

[quote] Merlin Holland, an expert on Wilde’s life and works, has ­criticised a 2ft-high black bronze.

It's only 2ft-high? That seems wrong. Based on the park benches in the background it looks much higher.

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, that is not being talked about."

Wilde is still being talked about.

Wait - but the artist died almost 20 years ago? What?

His estate's probably been trying to dump it somewhere for the last 20 years.

R5, you're right. It was a misstatement.

Of course it's not 2 feet high.

It's 2 miles. high.

It's 2 meters.

Keats and Yates are on your side. While Wilde is on mine.

It’s an insult to a man who had a great appreciation for aesthetics.

I like it. Somebody must have paid him to make it after the committee denied him. Or did he use his own funds?

[quote]Yates

Oh, dear, R11.

Yeats

That homo had kids?

Children and Grandchildren are not usually the best judges of these things

[quote]I'm kind of amazed that WIlde, who was born in 1854, has a grandchild who is still alive.

Incidentally, president John Tyler (b. 1790 - d. 1862) (in office 1841-1845), who was born a year after Washington was elected president, has a living grandson who will be 96 in a couple of weeks.

The Maggie Hambling sculpture is much more appealing and has become a much loved focal point. People leave flowers, champagne, joints etc. for Oscar.

I don't really like that one either, R19. Must poor Oscar always be in pieces?

The Oscar Wilde statue in Dublin (in Merrion Square, right across from the house in which he was born) gives me the creeps for some reason. he's so inelegantly posed.

[quote] Children and Grandchildren are not usually the best judges of these things

Merlin Holland is 78 years old, and is a well-known expert scholar of his grandfather's life and work.

Merlin looks a lot like Oscar. He has a son named Lucien Holland. They should have reclaimed the family name.

[quote] Children and Grandchildren are not usually the best judges of these things

The committee rejected it as well, calling it "too brutalist" and "didn’t feel that a segmented head of Oscar would represent what we wanted the public to enjoy and admire about him."

Can’t the poor man get a decent statue? Hasn’t he suffered enough?

Let's be honest, Oscar Wilde was really fucking ugly.

Always remember this; artists are mentally ill.

[quote]Always remember this; artists are mentally ill.

Adolf, for one.

And some posters are idiots.

Looking at you, r27. The only thing that's accurate about you is "fairy."

[quote]Let's be honest, Oscar Wilde was really fucking ugly.

He was not! He may not have looked his best after two years of hard labor but none of us would.

Maggi Hambling's work is the best of an uninspiring bunch. Oscar rising from his coffin, looking raddled but suavely convivial, at least conveys something of that monarch of wit.

Paolozzi's work conveys defeat and anonymity. It could be anyone among the fallen, and neither celebrates nor commemorates. The great aesthete deserves much better.

R24 is it even made of concrete?

I like it.

You want to celebrate his work? Watch some.

Seems right to me to memorialize the insane way gay men were demonized and driven to death in a different time.

Crazy to hear that Oscar Wilde has a grandson that's alive...idk I just associate him with days gone way past...

We tend to overestimate the shorter time spans and underestimate the longer ones. The 19th century wasn't that long ago – just look at r18's post about someone from the 18th century who still has a living grandson and you'll see just how close the Revolutionary War is to us.

Oscar should have gotten the Rodin treatment, like Balzac. Picture this in bronze.

[quote]Can’t the poor man get a decent statue? Hasn’t he suffered enough?

The Statues of Dorian Gray!

R36, he looks like Vita Sackville-West in that photo.

[quote] memorialize the insane way gay men were demonized and driven to death in a different time.

Yeah, but it looks like he was driven to death by a uncoordinated Isis terrorist who finally got it right on the 3rd try.

Either I go, or the cheekbones do.

[quote]Can’t the poor man get a decent statue? Hasn’t he suffered enough?

These days, it's hard for anybody to get a good life like statue, it seems. Usually they fuck it up, even when they aren't trying to make a statement. It's a lost art if it's meant to truly represent the subject in life. You're better off doing something representative or symbolic if you want to memorialize someone, rather than giving them some shitty thing where all anybody talks about is how wide of the mark it is.

I'd say this one of Diana looks more like Prince Philip in drag.

Does anyone imagine that Oscar Wilde would want to be memorialized as a victim?

If you want a monument to the oppression of gays, make that. Don’t turn a great writer into a symbol.

I don’t think the Diana statue is that bad. People remember her as beautiful, but she really wasn’t.

Maggi Hambling is a real character. Any interviews I’ve seen make it clear she doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Then you should be excited to know, R3, that the traitor president John Tyler, who was born in [bold]1790[/bold], has a living grandson.

I realize it's repetitious, but any mention of John Tyler, such as that in R18's, that does not include his being a traitor to the Union by joining the Confederacy's cause and accepting a position on Davis' cabinet.

[quote] looking raddled

Oh dear, R31.

The Hambling coffin settee is a piece of hostile architecture disguised as art.

Wilde was an aesthete and would be appalled by the statue no matter who it was attempting to portray.

[quote]Crazy to hear that Oscar Wilde has a grandson that's alive...idk I just associate him with days gone way past..

Is Christian Wilde related to Oscar?

That "settee" at R48 looks like the pegging board at Mormonboyz used for disciplinary action.

[quote] Wilde was an aesthete and would be appalled by the statue

In looking around at the figures which adorn our parks, one could almost wish that we had completely killed the noble art. To see the frock-coat of the drawing-room done in bronze, or the double waistcoat perpetuated in marble, adds a new horror to death.

Oh, dear, r47.

R30 He was very ugly and horse-faced, even during his "better" years. It looks like the great-grandkid may not have had kids, so those genes will not carry on.

I never understood why people said Stephen Fry looked just like Wilde when he played him. He didn't. The only similarity was that they were both rather hulking creatures.

We've seen worse Ethel.

Paolozzi sculpted a hideous statue...just like his Isaac Newton at the BL

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." -- Wilde

[quote]I never understood why people said Stephen Fry looked just like Wilde when he played him. He didn't. The only similarity was that they were both rather hulking creatures.

Fry was hulking, homosexual, clever, witty and media-hot at the time, so Oscar (not in the Academy way) beckoned. Born to be Wilde, as he quipped.

Rupert Everett doesn't look like Wilde, but his labour of love, his homage, to Oscar 'The Happy Prince', is more than watchable.

From a distance, children will see this sculpture and get excited thinking it's a pygmy hippopotamus.

Peter Egan made a better Wilde. Almost uncanny resemblance in this still from "Lillie."

Of course. When talking about gays of the past one must ALWAYS focus on their oppression and never their brilliance after all. Ugh. He would've hated this monstrosity.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this sculpture is that the too small shoulders and chest aren't proportionate to the much larger head. And then there's the underside of the cut-off torso. What are we supposed to be looking at there?

It seems like "the artist" he may have been working off the first drawing of Wilde in this article.