The Male Nude

Are men's genitals becoming more socially acceptable? They've popped up ... er ... been on display in the Leopold Museum in Vienna (CLICK), the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (CLICK) and the ICA in London (CLICK). The Wallace Collection in London is next to pump up its courage with The Male Nude: Eighteenth-century Drawings from the Paris Academy, which opens on 24 October, admission free (CLICK). Around 40 drawings of male nudes from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be on loan from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Many of the works on show are by artists represented in the Wallace Collection: Rigaud, Boucher, Nattier, Carle van Loo, Gros and Jean-Baptiste Isabey. The drawings on loan are all "académies" from life classes. Shown is Antoine-Jean Gros' Man standing, striking a bull (1790). There is no health warning on this exhibition. So you can take the kids.