Issue 67, Winter 1997
Four nude sculptures by Auguste Rodin, including The Kiss, were pulled from a traveling exhibition of Rodin's work, now being shown in the art museum at Brigham Young University in Utah. The other sculptures that the university refused to display are Saint John the Baptist Preaching, The Prodigal Son, and Monument to Balzac, each of which is nude or semi-nude. The works were considered offensive to community morals and religious views by directors of the church-sponsored university.
Curator of the traveling exhibit, Rachael Blackburn, reportedly has said that the university officials were troubled by the poses and presentations. "Rodin's subject matter is the nude, so you can't really not have nudes if you want to have a Rodin show."
Censorship News readers may recognize this as another example of the increasing focus on nudity in censorship of the arts (Censorship News 67).