The irresistible force of the industrial revolution meets the immovable objection of the aesthetic movement.
The reasons for Oscar Wilde’s much-heralded lecture tour of America seemed clear enough: to promote Gilbert & Sullivan’s latest operetta, Patience, while conducting a series of lectures on subjects of his own choosing.
At least that was the undertaking devised by the theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte.
Any suggestion that Oscar might, meanwhile, attempt to inculcate the American masses with what he perceived as much-needed ideas about art and aesthetics, would be entirely ulterior.
But Oscar made it his self-imposed mission to do just that.
The Oscar Wilde family home, built in 1760 at 1 Merrion Square North, Dublin, has embarked on a much-needed restoration to the annex that houses Sir William’s former consultation room, a gallery, and the balconied first floor orangery.
Here is an opportunity to support the project and in the process win an original artwork by one of Ireland’s leading contemporary artists, and artist-in-residence, Gerard Byrne—the painting was made in the Speranza lounge of the house during the recent Oscariana festival.
Artist Gerard Byrne with Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, who visited the house recently and lent his support to the project.
If you are about to start reading hundreds of biographies, memoirs, and diaries in search of informative or amusing (and preferably salacious) anecdotes about the Victorians in general, and Oscar Wilde in particular, then Stop!—you don’t have to. Neil Titley has done that for you.
The Oscar Wilde family home, built in 1760 at 1 Merrion Square North, Dublin, has embarked on a much-needed restoration to its annex that houses Sir William’s former consultation room, a gallery, and the balconied first floor orangery.
Here is an opportunity to support the project and in the process win an original artwork by one of Ireland’s leading contemporary artists, and artist-in-residence, Gerard Byrne—the painting was made in the Speranza lounge of the house during the recent Oscariana festival.
Artist Gerard Byrne with Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, who visited the house recently and lent his support to the project.
Having begun a personal resurgence of interest in Max Beerbohm (exhibition, article) it would be remiss not to also allude to the special role he had with regard to Oscar Wilde.
Max Beerbohm first met Oscar in 1888 while a student at Charterhouse School, but it was not a moment likely to engender an immediate affinity. For Max it was just a brief campus introduction. Whereas Oscar, now a decade removed from the callowness of college days, was about to seriously decamp for a term of decadent Bunburying.
If you have the opportunity to study Max Beerbohm’s satirical sketches in the current exhibitionMax Beerbohm: The Price of Celebrity (NY Public Library), it will not escape your notice how the writer and cartoonist ‘Max’, as he was familiarly known, was himself a consummate subject for caricature.
As we shall see, the idea of a Beerbohm burlesque was not lost on contemporary artists, nor, indeed, on Max either, for he caricatured himself more than any other subject.
Exhibition at the New York Public Library Through January 28, 2024
Celebrity became an international industry in the late nineteenth century, and the English artist, author, and dandy Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) was at the center of it.
From the 1890s through the 1920s, to be a celebrity meant the hope—and fear—of turning up in a drawing or a parody by “Max,” as he was known in both Britain and the U.S. His brilliant skewering of famous people in his visual caricatures and of their writing styles in his satirical works made him a celebrity himself. This was an identity he enjoyed, but later shrank from. In essays and fiction, he explored the price in human terms of achieving and maintaining celebrity status in ways that still resonate with us now.
Max Beerbohm: The Price of Celebrity maps Beerbohm’s career in relation to the idea of celebrity, following him from his early days in the social and artistic circles of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley through his late career as a radio performer on BBC broadcasts during World War II.
Drawn from across the Library’s collections, as well as loans from private and institutional collections, the exhibition includes rare original caricature drawings, manuscripts, photographs, books from Beerbohm’s library, and personal items, most on public display for the first time.
The exhibition is organized by The New York Public Library and curated by Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities, University of Delaware, and by Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press, with the assistance of Julie Carlsen, Assistant Curator, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library.
When Oscar Wilde arrived in America, at the beginning of 1882, the press came out to meet him on his ship theSS Arizona. A principal aim was to satisfy the public’s anticipation about what this aesthetic curiosity actually looked like.
A reporter from the New York Sun described Oscar’s appearance:
He stood at least six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and erect carriage. He wore a long ulster, lined with two kinds of fur, patent leather boots, and had a small round fur cap set squarely on his head. He stood at ease with one hand thrust into his ulster pocket and the other, with a large signet ring on its little finger…1
In retrospect, we might suspect of Oscar that if something as subtle as his signet ring managed to form part of the journalist’s first impression, it was not the last impression the ring was going to make.
In its inaugural year, Oscariana is a celebration of the birth of one of Ireland’s greatest sons. Join the good folks at Wilde’s childhood home and other locations in Dublin for a fabulous festival taking place from October 14-16, 2023.
Hear Oscar’s fairytales in the very nursery where he spent his childhood. Experience the acclaimed guided tour of Oscar Wilde House – the amazing and tragic stories of the Wilde family, in the very rooms where the dramas took place. See the dark and dangerous 1945 film noir version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar’s novel that caused a scandal, in the stylish and historic Stella Cinema in Rathmines. Laugh along with Wilde’s comic genius with the epic, technicolour 1952 version of The Importance of Being Earnest at Smithfield’s Lighthouse Cinema. See the classic Wildean play The Importance of Being Oscar in a room overlooking Merrion Park and Oscar’s iconic statue.
Oscar’s mother’s famous weekly gatherings of musicians, politicians and poets at One Merrion Square were famous across the 20 years or more the Wildes lived at the house. Sample what is was like to be at one of these events with our online event – Speranza’s Salon. This is a look inside the house, where you will be taken on a historic journey and see the artists, musicians and poets of today, performing in the rooms where the salons took place.
