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Oscar Wilde’s family criticise ‘hideous’ new statue of the writer

Merlin Holland, whose celebrated grandfather died in 1900, says the proposed monument depicts a man ‘beheaded by society’

A new statue of Oscar Wild has been branded “absolutely hideous” by the writer’s grandson.
The sculpture is set to stand in Chelsea, and will depict the author’s head and shoulders, lying horizontally and split into segments.
Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, has criticised the piece of modern art and claimed that it looks nothing like his famous forebear.
Speaking to The Observer, he said: “I’m all for any sort of innovations in modern art. But this does seem to me to be unacceptable. It looks absolutely hideous.”
Designed by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, who died in 2005, the bust will stand near Wilde’s former home in west London
Famed for his wit, Wilde became one of the leading writers in Victorian Britain with novels like The Picture of Dorian Grey, and his hugely popular play The Importance of Being Earnest.
He rapidly fell from grace when his relationship with Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas was discovered by the aristocat’s uncle, the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused the writer of being a “sodomite”.
This led Wilde to take legal action, but the trial further unearthed the extent of his same-sex relationships and ultimately led to his imprisonment.
The experience broke Wilde, who died impoverished in Paris aged 46 in 1900.
Mr Holland believes that the new statue evokes this tragic end, rather than his literary brilliance.
He said: “It seems to say: ‘Here is a monument to a man whom society decapitated.’ How do we want to remember him?Amusing, entertaining, engaging – or carved-up and beheaded for breaking the law of the time? I know which I prefer.”
Wilde has several monuments to his memory, and his tomb in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris has become a place of pilgrimage.
The grave has had to be covered with a glass screen to prevent Wilde fans marking it with lipstick.

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