Exhibitions

Oscar Wilde's De Profundis. A love letter rediscovered

Dublin, Ireland

Oscar Wilde without the mask of wit: wounded, furious, tender, philosophical — and heartbreakingly human.

Oscar Wilde image

Image credit

© MoLI — Museum of Literature Ireland

The Movement

Video Art Movement

ArtLovers Tip

A small but powerful Dublin stop — a moving encounter with Wilde at his most vulnerable, where literature becomes confession, resistance and memory.

Exhibition Highlights - What you'll see

This is a film installation dedicated to De Profundis, the extraordinary text Oscar Wilde wrote during his two-year imprisonment. It was the only work he completed while in prison, addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, whose relationship with Wilde was central to the events that led to Wilde’s conviction for “gross indecency.”

The installation presents key passages of the text through the voices of contemporary LGBTQ+ writers, artists and activists, turning Wilde’s prison letter into a living, collective act of reading. It reveals a different Wilde from the brilliant social performer we usually remember: less epigram, more wound; less theatre, more spiritual and emotional reckoning.

Worth the trip

Because De Profundis is not only a love letter. It is a document of queer history, punishment, betrayal, survival and artistic self-examination.

MoLI presents the work 125 years after Wilde’s death, making the exhibition feel both literary and urgent: a reminder of what society did to one of its greatest writers, and how language became his last form of dignity, rage and love.

For Artlovers, this is worth visiting because it is intimate, emotional and deeply human. It turns literature into an immersive experience — not just something to read, but something to hear, feel and sit with.

How to experience it

Don’t go expecting the witty Wilde of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Go for the Wilde who had lost almost everything and was still trying to understand love, suffering, beauty and forgiveness. Listen slowly. Let the voices carry the text. This is a quiet exhibition, but emotionally very strong.

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