US, teacher shows nudes of Modigliani, Boucher and Ingres in class: fired

The teacher of an elementary school in Hyrum (in Utah, U.S.), Mateo Rueda, was fired following protests by some parents of a class of 10-11-year-old students to whom the teacher showed nude paintings by François Boucher, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Amedeo Modigliani. The incidents date back to Dec. 4, but the news was spread by local newspapers, and then picked up by a variety of national and international newspapers, only in the final hours of 2017. The “incriminated” images belong to a series of educational postcards with reproductions of well-known paintings (by artists such as Leonardo, van Gogh, Monet and others) published by the publisher Phaidon, which Rueda showed to his pupils.

Mateo Rueda, in an email sent to Kamee Jensen, a mother opposed to his dismissal, explained that “the school library has several art books and eight containers of postcards containing different works. These are materials provided by the school, have been there for years, and presumably have been used several times previously by students. I was surprised to see that some of the postcards contained nude images. Some students expressed discomfort with these images, so I immediately removed the postcards that might have embarrassed some students. Then I explained to the entire class that art sometimes shows images that do not make us comfortable at all, that art is best understood when placed in an appropriate context, that the human body is often depicted in art, and that the images in the school’s collection are icons of art history as well as a heritage of humanity. At first the students seemed confused, but then my words helped them clarify their doubts.”

However, to little avail was Mateo Rueda’s explanation: a parent even reported him to the police, a few days later the school decided on a two-day suspension, and later the teacher was fired. “During a meeting,” Rueda writes further, “the school district gave me two options: resign, thus accepting their conditions for an alleged wrongdoing, or be fired with a harsh and defamatory letter. Honestly, I could not have accommodated either option. After expressing my position in a letter sent by my lawyer, the school went ahead with my dismissal, offering me the possibility of a hearing in case I thought they had made a mistake. Meanwhile, a police officer contacted me to let me know that there will be no charges against me.”

According to Rueda’s statement to a Salt Lake City newspaper, Fox 13 News, the two images the students “stumbled upon” are François Boucher’sOdalisque (1749, housed in the Louvre), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’Bather of Valpinçon (1808, housed in the Louvre), and Amedeo Modigliani’s Portrait of Iris Tree (1916, housed in the Courtauld Institute in London). Meanwhile, many are expressing solidarity with Mateo Rueda, and the teacher has announced that he is determined to get his job back. School officials currently prefer not to comment on the matter.

Pictured: François Boucher, Odalisque (1749; oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Paris, Louvre)

US, teacher shows nudes of Modigliani, Boucher and Ingres in class: fired

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