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A Conversation with Oscar Wilde, in which Wilde is depicted laughing and smoking, caused considerable friction. (The work was depicted in
Smoke: a global history of smoking.) Tom Lubbock, chief art critic of
The Independent, while acknowledging the need for a memorial in London to Wilde, and commending the project for its "real and proper Victorian public spirit", thoroughly condemned the piece itself, in design and execution, comparing it to a
Madame Tussauds waxwork. He compared the "macaroni tangle of undulating tubey strands" to a sort of
cadaver tomb called
transi, part of medieval tomb sculpture depicting rotting flesh and the resulting worms, concluding that ultimately the sculpture was not about Wilde or the viewing public, but a reflection of Hambling herself. Isaacs used his
right of reply to point out that the sculpture "already evokes more favourable response from the public than any other statue I know in London, with the possible exception of
Peter Pan".
Charles Spencer, chief drama critic of
The Telegraph, while professing his liking for the artist as a person, wrote how he loathed her sculptures. With respect to
A Conversation, he wrote: The sculpture was one of five works or events considered in
The Resurrection of Oscar Wilde: A Cultural Afterlife, along with "the consecration of a window in Wilde's honour in
Poet's Corner,
Peter Tatchell's campaign for a
Royal Pardon, the 1997 film
Wilde [...] and the public gatherings on the centenary of his death." Both Lubbock and Spencer pointedly advised their readers not to vandalise the sculpture. However, the cigarette has been repeatedly removed by members of the public (sawn off and replaced, according to
Philip Ardagh) in what has been called "the most frequent act of vandalism/veneration done to a public statue in London". ==References==