Simeon Solomon (1840-1905)

The Critic as Artist was an exhibition at Reading International about Oscar Wilde, who had visited Reading before his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, and whose ideas remain startlingly contemporary. The exhibition was an exploration of Wilde's theories of aesthetics and art criticism, 'advocating freedom from moral restraint and the limitations of society, as well as the creative ability of criticism to reach beyond the limitations of the work of art. These were and remain radical, integral to a developing idea of ‘the modern’ and above all joyously balanced between seriousness, ironic play, provocation, poetry and paradox.'