“The study of Dorothy Wilde belongs to a discipline that doesn’t exist.”
Dorothy dressed like, and sometimes as Oscar Wilde, her uncle, who she had always idolized but never met. She moved to Paris in 1914, drove ambulances on the front lines at age 19, and then found her way into Parisian social and literary circles where she spoke openly about her then controversial and cutting-edge beliefs in war, sexuality, art, and society. Unlike Oscar, she did not write or publish, but I’ve read in several places that she was a gifted story teller and a vivacious conversationalist. I wish we had journals from her, and knew more about her character.
While nominally listed as a “socialite” in biographical entries, she didn’t entertain on a grand scale, patronise genius or pioneer new ways of living, so you won’t find her mentioned in social histories of the 20th century. Despite her wit and facility with words you will search in vain for a book by her, so she’s not a subject for literary history. Contemporaries never failed to mention her dazzling eloquence but her performances, it seemed, belonged to the moment.
I’m deeply curious of strong women’s interior lives, which almost always highlights their love and sexual lives in media. For me, something about this aspect of the story feels less voyeuristic and more of a map. How does a strong woman move through the world? Who are her co-horts? Loves? Partners?
From A Ghost in Paris:
[Wilde] fell in love with Marion Carstairs, an oil heiress who usually dressed as a man and would in later years become a successful speedboat racer, have affairs with some of the most glamorous women of her age including Marlene Dietrich… Dolly, being one herself, seemed to attract fascinating women, who often seem more like characters out of the racier sort of novel than real people. She was fortunate enough to be in Paris at a time when women were very much in the ascendant.
I found the story of Dorothy because I stumbled on the above painting. Good portraits are linked to interesting people. And my interest in life-paths seem to come from art - a picture or a painting - and arrive at a good or at least unusual story.
“I am more Oscar-like than he was like himself,” - Dorothy Wilde
For KS & Nomad Farm
