BOSSES at Edinburgh Airport have been forced to rethink a decision to cover up a poster of a naked woman advertising an exhibition of Picasso artworks.
Management had covered the image of the Spanish master's Nude Woman in a Red Armchair with a sheet after some passengers travelling through the international departure lounge complained.
The print – publicising the Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition which opened last week at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – was later removed from view. The airport then asked for another work from the exhibition, which runs until November 4, to be used as an alternative.
However last night, after the gallery described the complaints as bizarre, airport chiefs put the print back on display.
A spokesman said: "The initial decision was a reaction to passenger feedback, which we do always take seriously. However, on reflection, we are more than happy to display the image in the terminal and we'd like to apologise – particularly to the exhibition organisers – for the confusion.
"We hope the interest assists in further promoting the Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition to the many visitors to Edinburgh at the moment."
Edinburgh Airport could not confirm how many passengers had complained about the artwork.
John Leighton, director-general 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 and has to be removed.
"I hope the public will come and see the real thing, which is a joyous and affectionate portrait of one of Picasso's favourite models, an image that has been shown around the world."
The exhibition, organised by Tate Britain, explores Picasso's connections with Britain and other artists' responses to his work. It features more than 150 artworks from public and private collections, including 60 paintings by Picasso and work by British artists Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon.
l A portrait by French painter Edouard Manet has been saved for the nation after an eight-month campaign raised almost £8 million to buy it.
The oil painting, Portrait Of Mademoiselle Claus, was sold to a foreign buyer last year for £28.35m. However, the Government put an export bar on it and under the terms of its sale it was made available to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for just over one-quarter of its market value.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article