Elisabeth Frink’s nude New Man sculpture was ‘too much to bare’ – Hong Kong covered it up
- The bronze artwork of a naked male had its ‘distinguishing features’ hidden behind a cardboard fig leaf
- After months of scrutiny and controversy, censors came to their senses and restored the statue to ‘all his glory’
“Naked truth too much to bare,” ran a South China Morning Post headline on June 6, 1995. In “a terrifying precedent of censorship”, British artist Elisabeth Frink’s New Man sculpture, “a nude life-size male” in bronze, had its “distinguishing features” covered by a cardboard fig leaf following a ruling by the Obscene Articles Tribunal, prompted by an anonymous complaint.
“The Hong Kong Arts Development Council criticised the ruling as an appalling exercise of judgment which may set a precedent for curbing artistic freedom of expression,” the story continued.
“If you look at the sculpture, in no way is it implying any kind of arousal, there’s nothing sexual about it,” Oscar Ho Hing-kay, exhibition director at the Arts Centre, told the Post.
Owned by local lawyer and entrepreneur Woo Po-shing and displayed at Kailey Tower, in Central, the sculpture was estimated to be worth up to HK$614,000 at the time.
“The tribunal was made up of an all-male panel who were intent on protecting the morals of young girls,” legislator Christine Loh Kung-wai told the paper. “Elisabeth Frink’s sculpture is not about sex, it’s about humanity. The emphasis is on the face, not the genitals.”
Defending the tribunal’s decision, chief magistrate Anthony To Kwai-fung said “art lovers were a misguided, vociferous minority who didn’t understand the law”, according to a June 21 report in the Post.