Shropshire professor poses nude for show

Professor Mary Beard has revealed she posed for life drawings in an attempt to “democratise the nude”.

EMBARGOED TO 2300 THURSDAY JANUARY 30.EDITORIAL USE ONLY.Mary Beard unveils a nude portrait of herself by artist Catherine Goodman at the preview screening of the BBC Arts programme â Mary Beardâs Shock of The Nude, at the Royal Academy in London. PA Photo. Picture date: Thursday January 30, 2020. The two-part programme will air on BBC Two at 9pm on February 3rdand February 10th. Photo credit should read: Matt Alexander/PA Wire.

The 65-year-old broadcaster, from Shropshire, is presenting Shock Of The Nude, a BBC documentary about nudity in Western art and its “power to provoke ideas about gender, sex and moral transgression”. As part of the programme, Prof Beard, a classicist at the University of Cambridge, stripped down and posed for the artist Catherine Goodman.

Explaining her decision to bare all, Prof Beard, who grew up in Church Preen, near Much Wenlock, said she wanted to strike back against idealised body images. “I didn’t want to be the elderly academic commentator who talks about an edgy subject entirely from the safety of her own leggings and mac,” she said.

“I realise that some people are going to say why on earth did she do it? Shouldn’t 65-year-old women keep their clothes on? But that is also part of the point of the whole series. Whose bodies do we see? Whose are deemed ‘okay for art’?”

“In trying to democratise the nude a bit, and in being a bit more inclusive of different body types - maybe we are striking a little blow against all those idealised, photo-shopped body images with which we are surrounded, and which we can never live up to.”

EMBARGOED TO 2300 THURSDAY JANUARY 30 Undated handout photo issued by Catherine Goodman of Classicist professor Mary Beard (right) and artist Catherine Goodman, as the professor, who has revealed she posed for the drawings in an attempt to "democratise the nude". PA Photo. Issue date: Thursday January 30, 2020. See PA story Beard. Photo credit should read: Catherine Goodman/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder.

Prof Beard posed for a series of charcoal images from Goodman and said relief was one of her first emotions when she saw the finished product.

“I still find it hard to say what I think of the charcoals,” she said.

“I was very relieved when I saw them. And I like them. But it is quite interesting to reflect on how difficult it is to identify with them... is it me, or someone else’s view of me?

“That was something I hadn’t expected to learn, but it fits with what some more experienced models say.”

Mary Beard’s Shock Of The Nude will air on BBC Two at 9pm on February 3.