Anonymous artist Banksy has promised to raise millions of pounds in a bid to buy the prison where Oscar Wilde served his sentence for “gross indecency” with men.
In February Banksy painted on a wall of the former goal a piece called Create Escape - depicting an inmate in prison uniform making a bid for freedom.
Has #Banksy begun transformation of the Goal into an arts centre? Nobody knows... But clearly whoever adorned the side of the Gaol with this inspired image understands exactly what we're trying to achieve.
Let #Rdg have its voice & keep its heritage. #SaveReadingGaol #banksyart pic.twitter.com/JKsPnpUHQy— Save Reading Gaol (@SaveReadingGaol) March 2, 2021
The former HMP Reading is currently owned by the British Government and was put up for sale in 2019. A bid by the local council to turn it into an arts and cultural centre was rejected as too low.
However, heritage campaigners fear that if it is not bought by the council, it could be taken over by property developers.
Banksy has offered to sell the stencil he used to graffiti his artwork onto the side of the prison; the artist is believed to have sold only one stencil before and this one has an estimated value of £10-15 million (€12-18 million).
Banksy said:
“I had very little interest in Reading until I was on a rail replacement bus service that went past the jail. It’s rare to find an uninterrupted 500m-long paintable surface slap bang in the middle of a town; I literally clambered over the passenger next to me to get a closer look.
“I promised myself I’d paint the wall even before I knew what it was. I’m passionate about it now, though. Oscar Wilde is the patron saint of smashing two contrasting ideas together to create magic.
“Converting the place that destroyed him into a refuge for art feels so perfect we have to do it.”
A spokesperson for Reading Council commented:
“We are thrilled that Banksy appears to have thrown his support behind the council’s desire to transform the vacant Reading gaol into a beacon of arts, heritage and culture with this piece of artwork he has aptly called Create Escape.”
Wilde
Wilde was arrested in 1895 and convicted for gross indecency at a trial in which he was cross examined by Sir Edward Carson about his “improprieties” with men. After sentencing he was moved to Reading Gaol - some 70 kilometers west of London.
The food was awful, the sanitation poor and Wilde had few visitation rights. However, his time incarcerated proved productive on a literary level; in Reading he wrote De Profundis - a lengthy and at times optimistic letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.
After his release Wilde also penned The Ballad of Reading Goal about his life behind bars.
However, so strong was Victorian disapproval of homosexuality that he moved to France in self-imposed exile where he died in 1900.
Main image: An undated picture of Oscar Wilde. Picture by: DPA DEUTSCHE PRESS-AGENTUR/DPA/PA Images.
