'Absolutely hideous’: new London sculpture of Oscar Wilde condemned by his grandson
A huge sculpture of Oscar Wilde’s head lying on its side, his face sliced into segments, has been condemned as “absolutely hideous” by the playwright’s grandson.
Merlin Holland, an expert on Wilde’s life and works, has criticised a 2ft-high black bronze sculpture by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi that is to be unveiled in a public garden in Chelsea, south-west London, near Wilde’s former home.
He told the Observer: “I’m all for any sort of innovations in modern art. But this does seem to me to be unacceptable. It looks absolutely hideous.”
Holland said it looks nothing like Wilde and fails to convey anything of the wit and brilliance of one of the greatest playwrights in the English language, who wrote Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 62 | September 24, 2024 10:23 PM
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Almost as bad as the Lucy one.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 21, 2024 11:19 PM
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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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 2 | September 21, 2024 11:24 PM
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I'm kind of amazed that WIlde, who was born in 1854, has a grandchild who is still alive.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 21, 2024 11:25 PM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | September 21, 2024 11:32 PM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | September 22, 2024 12:03 AM
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"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.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | September 22, 2024 12:09 AM
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Wait - but the artist died almost 20 years ago? What?
by Anonymous | reply 7 | September 22, 2024 12:28 AM
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His estate's probably been trying to dump it somewhere for the last 20 years.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | September 22, 2024 12:41 AM
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R5, you're right. It was a misstatement.
Of course it's not 2 feet high.
It's 2 miles. high.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | September 22, 2024 12:51 AM
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Keats and Yates are on your side. While Wilde is on mine.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | September 22, 2024 1:23 AM
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It’s an insult to a man who had a great appreciation for aesthetics.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | September 22, 2024 1:40 AM
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I like it. Somebody must have paid him to make it after the committee denied him. Or did he use his own funds?
by Anonymous | reply 13 | September 22, 2024 2:10 AM
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Children and Grandchildren are not usually the best judges of these things
by Anonymous | reply 17 | September 22, 2024 3:01 AM
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[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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 18 | September 22, 2024 3:21 AM
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The Maggie Hambling sculpture is much more appealing and has become a much loved focal point. People leave flowers, champagne, joints etc. for Oscar.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 19 | September 22, 2024 4:01 AM
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I don't really like that one either, R19. Must poor Oscar always be in pieces?
by Anonymous | reply 20 | September 22, 2024 4:04 AM
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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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 21 | September 22, 2024 4:10 AM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | September 22, 2024 4:13 AM
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Merlin looks a lot like Oscar. He has a son named Lucien Holland. They should have reclaimed the family name.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 23 | September 22, 2024 4:20 AM
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[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."
by Anonymous | reply 24 | September 22, 2024 4:25 AM
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Can’t the poor man get a decent statue? Hasn’t he suffered enough?
by Anonymous | reply 25 | September 22, 2024 4:25 AM
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Let's be honest, Oscar Wilde was really fucking ugly.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | September 22, 2024 4:49 AM
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Always remember this; artists are mentally ill.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | September 22, 2024 4:54 AM
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[quote]Always remember this; artists are mentally ill.
Adolf, for one.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | September 22, 2024 5:24 AM
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And some posters are idiots.
Looking at you, r27. The only thing that's accurate about you is "fairy."
by Anonymous | reply 29 | September 22, 2024 7:16 AM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | September 22, 2024 8:01 AM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | September 22, 2024 8:26 AM
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R24 is it even made of concrete?
by Anonymous | reply 32 | September 22, 2024 9:33 AM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | September 22, 2024 9:49 AM
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Crazy to hear that Oscar Wilde has a grandson that's alive...idk I just associate him with days gone way past...
by Anonymous | reply 34 | September 22, 2024 10:59 AM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | September 22, 2024 11:08 AM
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Oscar should have gotten the Rodin treatment, like Balzac. Picture this in bronze.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 36 | September 22, 2024 11:24 AM
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[quote]Can’t the poor man get a decent statue? Hasn’t he suffered enough?
The Statues of Dorian Gray!
by Anonymous | reply 37 | September 22, 2024 11:30 AM
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R36, he looks like Vita Sackville-West in that photo.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | September 22, 2024 11:41 AM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | September 22, 2024 12:40 PM
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Either I go, or the cheekbones do.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | September 22, 2024 12:50 PM
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[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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 41 | September 22, 2024 12:55 PM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | September 22, 2024 1:02 PM
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I don’t think the Diana statue is that bad. People remember her as beautiful, but she really wasn’t.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | September 22, 2024 1:03 PM
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Maggi Hambling is a real character. Any interviews I’ve seen make it clear she doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | September 22, 2024 1:16 PM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | September 22, 2024 2:15 PM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | September 22, 2024 2:22 PM
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The Hambling coffin settee is a piece of hostile architecture disguised as art.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 48 | September 22, 2024 7:09 PM
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Wilde was an aesthete and would be appalled by the statue no matter who it was attempting to portray.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | September 22, 2024 10:16 PM
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[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?
by Anonymous | reply 50 | September 22, 2024 10:17 PM
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That "settee" at R48 looks like the pegging board at Mormonboyz used for disciplinary action.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | September 22, 2024 10:22 PM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | September 22, 2024 10:52 PM
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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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 54 | September 24, 2024 3:04 AM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | September 24, 2024 1:49 PM
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Paolozzi sculpted a hideous statue...just like his Isaac Newton at the BL
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." -- Wilde
by Anonymous | reply 57 | September 24, 2024 3:17 PM
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[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.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | September 24, 2024 3:54 PM
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From a distance, children will see this sculpture and get excited thinking it's a pygmy hippopotamus.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | September 24, 2024 6:58 PM
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Peter Egan made a better Wilde. Almost uncanny resemblance in this still from "Lillie."
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 60 | September 24, 2024 7:06 PM
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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.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | September 24, 2024 7:27 PM
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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.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 62 | September 24, 2024 10:23 PM
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