Gauguin painting attacked because of nudity

A friend sent me a link to an article about Gauguin's painting which is on display in Washington, DC.  (along with an entire exhibit of his work.)  Apparently there was a mentally ill woman there  who really disliked nudity in his painting and attacked the picture because of it.  She shouted, "I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual. I am trying to remove it. I think it should be burned".  

Indeed.  I have to hope she doesn't make it to Richmond to one of my exhibits!  


Here's the link to the full article in case you're interested.

The Gauguin exhibition continues at Washington's National Gallery until 5 June 2011 

And here's information from Heilbrunn's Timeline of Art History about the piece:

Two Tahitian Women, 1899
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
Oil on canvas

37 x 28 1/2 in. (94 x 72.4 cm)
Signed and dated (lower left): 99 / PGauguin
Gift of William Church Osborn, 1949 (49.58.1)

Before Gauguin brought his work in Tahiti to a close, he shifted from his symbolist pictorial agenda in order to focus on the beauty and serene virtues of the native women. In this painting, he depended on sculpturally modeled forms, gesture, and facial expression to vivify the sentiments he had used to describe the "Tahitian Eve": "very subtle, very knowing in her naïveté" and at the same time "still capable of walking around naked without shame." These two figures first appear in the artist's monumental friezeFaa Iheihe (Tahitian Pastoral)of 1898 (Tate, London) and again in the even largerRupe, Rupeof 1899 (Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow), which he composed for the upcoming Exposition Universelle of 1900.

Source:Paul Gauguin: Two Tahitian Women (49.58.1) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art