Tag: irish

Article

The Kelly Sketch 1882

Oscar Wilde Blog4 Comments

The James E. Kelly sketch of Oscar Wilde

One of the reasons Oscar Wilde accepted the invitation to lecture in North America was the opportunity it gave him to meet people. In reality, this meant meeting people who might be able to help him achieve the fame he desired.

His manager, Colonel W. F. Morse, was ideally suited to oversee the venture. As a former military man turned theatrical manager he had a tactical grasp of public relations. One of the first things he did was to arrange a photo session for Wilde with the renowned portraitist Napoleon Sarony.

But Morse also needed a sketch of Wilde for promotional purposes, announcements, and the like. For this task he commissioned a New York artist named James E. Kelly.1

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Article

I See Thee With Angels

Oscar Wilde Blog4 Comments
Portrait of Lady Jane Wilde by Bernard Mulrenin
Watercolor for the Royal Hibernian Academy Exhibition, 1864

“TO A CHILD IN HEAVEN”
A Translation by Lady Wilde

In June 1877, the short-lived Dublin magazine The Illustrated Monitor notably published a poem that Oscar Wilde had written in Rome titled: “Urbs Sacra Æterna” (Sacred and Eternal City).

However, that was not the only Italian connection. Elsewhere in the same issue there appeared a now forgotten and uncollected verse in translation provided by Oscar’s mother. It carried the auspicious title “To a Child in Heaven”.1

Here it is as it appeared when reprinted in Donahoe’s Magazine:

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Article · News

Divided Opinion

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Civic Monument or Public Art?

All statues are sculpted, but not all sculptures are statues.

A bronze bust titled ‘The Head of Oscar Wilde’ was installed recently on Dovehouse Green—a small London park not far from where Wilde lived in Tite Street, Chelsea,

It is a posthumous work by the Scottish sculptor and graphic artist, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924—2005), made possible by a charitable foundation to mark the centenary of his birth, and its unveiling was also timed appropriately to occur on Oscar Wilde’s birthday.

The physical configuration of the piece renders our man of letters as a fallen and fractured figure. Metaphor this may be—but, absent a meaningful reading, its composition is inclined to suggest itself, ironically, as a symbol of divided opinion.

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Announcement

Film—Wilde in New York

Oscar Wilde Blog6 Comments

A New Video Documentary by Erik Ryding

From Quill Classics comes a new full length video documentary written and directed by Erik Ryding: Wilde in New York.

Although Oscar Wilde is mostly associated with London at his zenith as a playwright, New York City also deserves a special place in his history. It was in New York, in fact, that his first two plays—Vera and The Duchess of Padua—had their world-premiere performances. During his yearlong tour of the United States in 1882, when he was a little-known poet associated with the comic character Bunthorne in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera Patience, he sojourned in New York several times, establishing important social and artistic connections. Prompting newspaper stories wherever he went, he returned to Europe a genuine celebrity.

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