Critic as Artist

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and playwright who became one of London’s most popular writers in the early 1890s. Graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, and later Magdalen College, Oxford, Wilde embarked on a hugely successful lecture tour of America in 1882. Two early melodramatic tragedies, Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880) and The Duchess of Padua (1883), were written during these years, paving the way for later stage classics such as A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Wilde also continued to write prose and criticism for popular daily newspapers such as The Pall Mall Gazette, as well as The Woman’s World, a Victorian women’s magazine that he edited between 1887 and 1889. Though often controversial, his flair for journalism and nose for scandal ensured these writings were widely read. His bold essays on aesthetic philosophy, published together in the collection Intentions (1891), were known for their wit and play with motif. Together with his plays and poems, these writings on art remain important and influential meditations of the nature of art criticism itself.Michael Bracewell is a British writer and novelist who has written extensively on modern and contemporary art and culture. He is a contributor to Burlington and frieze magazines. His recent contributions include essays for Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work (2010), The Rise of David Bowie 1972–1973 (2016), and Joy Division (2017), as well as Michaël Borremans: Fire from the Sun (2018) for David Zwirner Books. His selected writings on visual art, The Space Between, were published by Ridinghouse in 2012.

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