Art teacher fired after nude paintings shown to elementary students
A Utah art teacher fired after students saw European paintings depicting nudity in his class claims he was wrongly terminated.
The elementary school teacher in Hyrum, some 80 miles north of Salt Lake City, said the art that led to a classroom pornography complaint belonged to the school’s library before he ever worked there, Utah’s The Herald Journal reported.
Mateo Rueda concluded a Dec. 4 lesson at Lincoln Elementary School by letting sixth graders sift through a set of about 100 cards featuring famous artworks — about three or four of which, unbeknownst to him, portrayed nudity, he told the newspaper.
Alongside well-known pieces such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers were a few prints of works such as Francois Boucher’s Odalisque, an 18th-century partial nude of a woman lounging, Rueda said.
Read the full story at USA Today.
Musée du Louvre / The Courtauld Gallery / Wikipedia
Musée du Louvre / The Courtauld Gallery / Wikipedia