'Oscar Wilde' by Juliet Pleming
Anglo-Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde is one of the most beloved writers in the English language. His The Importance Of Being Earnest is the second most performed comedy in the world. Following a court case in which Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensbury for labelling him a 'sodomite' in public, Wilde lost and spent two years in Reading Prison. He broke rocks as part of his hard labour there, while also writing epic poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol and much of his philosophical opus De Profundis. Following his release he moved to Paris, still being a famous - but now despised - figure in public life, and died through illness shortly after. More than 100 years later, and following homosexuality laws being softened in Britain since the 1960s, he was finally pardoned in 2017.
Juliet Pleming is a Maidenhead-based artist, and contributed this original portrait to the Innocence Art project.
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