Due to numerous lewd calls from artists and Oregon residents about stark naked art models at the University of Oregon, the college decided to nix a figure drawing class to protect the models from a slew of seemingly pervy artisans.
Known as the Saturday Figure Drawing Group, the free class offered to local artists and residents would meet once a week to workshop drawings of live nude models. But after a few weeks of potential students calling the school asking apparently bawdy questions about the models, the university canceled the classes, according to an official university letter forwarded to The Daily Caller.
“First, we believe the practice of studying the nude figure has tremendous value and purpose in the creation of art and the development of artistic ability,” acting dean Brook Muller wrote in the letter. “We also have no concerns whatsoever with either the professionalism of the models who have posed for these sessions, or the professionalism of individuals who have attended these sessions.”
Leading up to the start of the 2014 school year, the university had been receiving racy inquiries about the models who pose in the buff for the class. Muller’s letter explained that the throngs of attention the class was receiving from unsavory prospective students wouldn’t “ensure a safe environment for the models and participants.”
The Associate Dean for Finance Rocco Luiere told the Associated Press that some of the questions concerned the appearances of the models.
But Luiere also noted that in addition to the models’ safety, funding the increasingly popular and expensive class also led to axing the free course.
“These were not university classes, they were free sessions that were openly offered to members of the Eugene community that were held on the university campus and supported by the budget of the Department of Art,” Luiere told TheDC. (RELATED: School Forces Hald-naked, Sopping Wet Student To Stand Outside, Frostbite Results)
Due to residents’ and local artists’ increased interests in taking a class with models only wearing their birthday suits, the free course was too pricey for the university to sustain. However, the state school still offers classes with nude models to enrolled students.
“It’s always such a welcoming, friendly community,” nude model for the group Alida Bevirt told The Register-Guard. “It’s a creative process, and you get to be a part of someone else’s work of art. It’s just really sad to me. I just don’t like the idea that the UO would block figurative drawing.”
Muller, however, ended the forwarded letter saying all hope is not lost, the Oregon community might have a chance in the future to draw naked people if the class receives public funds.