‘The vitriol was really unhealthy’: artist Sonia Boyce on the row over taking down Hylas and the Nymphs

When John William Waterhouse’s 1896 painting was taken off the walls of Manchester Art Gallery, furious critics described it as censorship or a publicity stunt. That couldn’t be further from the truth, says the artist at the centre of the stormWhen John William Waterhouse’s painting Hylas and the Nymphs was removed from the walls of the Manchester Art Gallery at the end of January, all hell broke loose. Social media was electric with outraged cries of “censorship”. The critic Jonathan Jones asked whether this was the thin end of the wedge: would Picasso be off the walls next?An Oxford professor of German wrote to the Guardian warning that this had happened before: Nazi curators had taken down works because they had “conflicted with their political aims and puritanical taste”. Messages poured into the museum’s website: some in support but more of them against. There were worries that the removal was an act of politically correct virtue signalling; wasn’t so far down the line from book-burning; was feminist extremism “at its worst”. There was also plain old irritation that a much-loved painting was not on view when visitors had travelled to see it. Continue reading…
Via: ‘The vitriol was really unhealthy’: artist Sonia Boyce on the row over taking down Hylas and the Nymphs