Oscar Wilde

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“A conversation with Oscar Wilde” by Maggi Hambling, 1998
Adelaide Street
London, September 2016

“A Conversation with Oscar Wilde is an outdoor sculpture and the first public monument dedicated to Oscar Wilde, located in London, United Kingdom. The memorial was first suggested during the 1980s and early 1990s by fans of his work, including Derek Jarman. Following Jarman's death in 1994, a committee called "A Statue for Oscar Wilde" was formed to bring a tribute to fruition. The committee included the actors Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, and the poet Seamus Heaney. From sketches submitted by twelve artists, six were chosen to create models of their concepts. Maggi Hambling's ‘witty and amusing’ work was chosen for the memorial. It features Wilde's bronze head rising from a green granite sarcophagus which also serves as a bench. Wilde is also depicted holding a cigarette. The work is inscribed with a quotation from his play Lady Windermere's Fan: ‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars’. Hundreds of individual donors and foundations contributed funds for the project.” (A Conversation with Oscar Wilde, Wikipedia)