August 11, 2012

Picasso Nude Too Hot For Airport

This poster, which offers a stylized depiction of Pablo Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, appeared at Edinburgh Airport as an advertisement for the show Picasso and Modern British Art, which is running at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from August 4 to November 4, 2012.

However, following complaints from travelers, the airport decided to cover up Picasso’s Nude Woman in a Red Armchair with a white sheet. 

Now, after gallery chiefs branded the move as “bizarre,” the airport has backed down and reinstated the image. 

John Leighton, general director of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “It is obviously bizarre that all kinds of images of women in various states of dress and undress can be used in contemporary advertising without comment, but somehow a painted nude by one of the world’s most famous artists is found to be disturbing.”