Tag: statue

Article

Bonhams

Oscar Wilde Blog1 Comment

In my last blog post about a picture that was Not Oscar, I related the story of how an image purporting to show a young Wilde in an assembly of pupils at Portora Royal School, had to be withdrawn from an auction at Bonhams in 1998.

Merlin Holland explained the reasons for the removal in his recent book After Oscar (pp. 576-578), also confirming that the withdrawal was made immediately prior to the sale.

On account of this last fact, I was asked whether the late decision had left Bonhams time to amend the offering of the withdrawn items, or had the catalogue already been printed?

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Article · News

Divided Opinion

Oscar Wilde Blog3 Comments

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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