John William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs has been taken down (Picture: Manchester City Galleries)

One of the country’s biggest galleries has removed a pre-Raphaelite painting to ‘prompt conversations’ about women’s bodies in art.

Manchester Art Gallery announced that it was taking down John William Waterhouse’s 1896 work Hylas and the Nymphs, one of the most recognisable paintings of the Victorian-era movement.

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The painting shows nude, pubescent nymphs tempting Hylas to his doom.

Visitors will not be able to see the painting in the gallery, nor will they be able to buy postcards of it in the gift shop.


It usually hangs in a room called In Pursuit of Beauty, in which many paintings of eroticised and submissive women and girls – common for the period – hang.



Its dramatic removal, curators claim, was intended to provoke a debate about how we interpret such works – particularly within the context of #MeToo and #TimesUp.

The work hasn’t been replaced. Instead, a note has been stuck up in the blank space of wall explaining that the painting was taken down as a conceptual work of art by contemporary artist Sonia Boyce.

‘We have left a temporary space here in place of Hylas and the Nymphs by JW Waterhouse to prompt conversation about how we display and interpret artworks in Manchester’s public collection,’ the note says.

‘How can we talk about the collection in ways which are relevant to the 21st century?’

Manchester Art Gallery has been accused of censorship (Picture: PA)

The note then listed ideas that curators wanted visitors to think about, including the presentation of women’s bodies as either a ‘passive decorative form’ or a ‘femme fatale’ in Victorian-era art.

It encouraged people to discuss the topic using the hashtag #MAGSoniaBoyce. Visitors have also responded by sticking up post-its with their opinions on the gallery wall.

Reaction to the decision has been mixed.

This is a brilliant way to engage with your audience, initiate discussion & then have content for a new exhibition! Diversity means survival in the art world, brilliant #MAGSoniaBoyce https://t.co/GerLBcRvwf — Rebecca Thomson (@RTpromotes) February 1, 2018

We can have a far more productive and critical discussion of bodies and "beauty" if we can see all of history's representations, no matter how "problematic" #MAGsoniaboyce — The Nakedemic (@TheNakedemic) February 1, 2018

Which one would YOU want to contemplate? #MAGsoniaboyce pic.twitter.com/sD3CvgNkaj — Jennie Brown Hakim (@JennieBH) January 31, 2018

#magsoniaboyce

Reaction and debate? Okay. They need to put it back and stop pretending to be the Taliban. I, for one, will not visit, or support, any gallery that practises puritanical censorship of celebrated art. — Alan Rain ?? (@AlanRain3) February 1, 2018

Bravo @mcrartgallery Let's start talking about who makes decisions and judgements about what we see and don't see in our galleries. The outrage about this is maddening, considering that curators are making these decisions all the time! #MAGSoniaBoyce — SimPanaser (@SimPanaser) February 1, 2018

#MAGSoniaBoyce

Censorship in Art is a slippery slope. Would they remove Rodins ' the kiss' Manets ' Olympia ' individuals can choose to look at art if u don't like it don't go see it. This applies to all forms including film and books/ poetry. It should be put back . — Ty (@Ty_easytiger) February 1, 2018

I'm all for 'challenging Victorian fantasy' @mcrartgallery but removing an art work is not a 'creative' act, it's reductive. It also lazily and exclusively presumes that all your visitors are aware of Waterhouse's original painting. https://t.co/Kda5fZDADz #MAGSoniaBoyce — Gavin Plumley (@gavinplumley) February 1, 2018

The same scene, painted in the same period, by a woman, Henrietta R. Rae, who, according to Christie's, 'saw herself primarily as a painter of classical themes with a strong emphasis on the female nude.' #MAGSoniaBoyce @Mcrartgallery pic.twitter.com/mbftlkSwHU — Philip (@philip_dantes) February 1, 2018

Many have accused the gallery of censorship, seeing it as the erasure of an aspect of one of art history’s most important movements.

Some have said the decision was another sign of ‘political correctness’.

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But others believe the work’s temporary removal has successfully sparked debate about what we accept as viewers when it’s placed within the context of the gallery.

Claire Gannaway, MAG’s curator of contemporary art, assured the Guardian that the painting’s removal wasn’t about censorship.

‘We think it probably will return, yes, but hopefully contextualised quite differently,’ she said.

‘It is not just about that one painting, it is the whole context of the gallery.’