What a stupid principal. The sins of the artist and the study of the art are orthogonal and can be taught accordingly.

What teacher? Which School? Teach Picasso, ALL of Picasso. Teach his art, his cultural context, his anti-fascist politics, AND what a phenomenal douche canoe he was in his personal life. Artists are people and people are complex. You can explore their contributions with out giving them a free pass for the shitty things they also did. It's not an either or situation.

I'm calling bullshit.

5: Yep, it's just the latest moral panic on the right. People are getting cancelled! Except they're really not.

It's because any honest lesson on Pablo Picasso's misogyny will have to include how girls turned the color of avocado and couldn't resist his stare when he strutted his short stuff down their streets. Any cautious principal will naturally wish to avoid the damage that might result from young minds encountering cognitive dissonance over the fact that he never got called an asshole.

Picasso is an overrated hack whose "art" gave me bad dreams. What's wrong? Not enough artists around who weren't major assholes? African masks? Oh, that's relevant. Christ on a cracker. Why teach art at all. It's all crap. Draw your own crap.

@7 This seems like dubious spin. Of course no way to know the particulars of this situation without more information but it sounds like an art history teacher is being required to excise perhaps the most central 20th century artist from his curriculum because he was abusive to women in his life. The principal is the one who appears to be making this an either/or choice rather than the teacher. Rather obvious that a generalized art history class could (and should) touch on non-western as well as western art and artists and also, if you ask me, rather obvious: the quality and significance of art does not hinge on the politics or personality defects of the artist.

@9 You win.

@9 Thank you for making my day.

What exactly does it mean to "teach Picasso"? If it's an Art History class he would undoubtedly be covered. If it's some form of actual drawing or painting class... does this mean they'd do a painting in his style? And what do African Masks have to do with anything... I mean, they're nice and all...

@10 - Well, not all of us are so talented to draw crap or even would like to see and learn about more crap. That shouldn't upset you honey.

@14: Cubism, his blue period in comparison to later works.

@9: Oh BRAVO! xoxo

"...He said he was a public school teacher and he had been instructed by his principal to stop teaching Picasso due to the artist’s history of misogyny."

BANG UP "JOURNALISM," HERZOG!
So. An unnamed man. At an unnamed school. At an undisclosed time. No interview with said principle or said man. Yeah. Sounds totes legit, bro.

Nothing like building a moral panic story around anecdote and apocrypha. Christ what a joke The Stranger is now.

"Haidt also suggested that the teacher look for allies, particularly those who are not white males."

Gee, I wonder why it's so easy for white nationalists to recruit these days?

"Gee, I wonder why it's so easy for white nationalists to recruit these days?"

Wonder no more. It's because large portion of white dudes are whiney entitled dumbfucks and believe literally any trolling bullshit they come across on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCT80HJWQ2A

You're right. It happened. Our research found a published report of a similar story.

Many accomplished people from varied disciplines are total assholes due to their tendency to put their 'thing' over the needs of others. Might as well stop the study of anyone that has done anything historically noteworthy - for the children of course.

@3 and @18 as an attendee of this book reading and friend of reported teacher I can confirm his existence and the accuracy of reported events. Why chronically troll the Strangers lone interesting writer via your keyboard when you could get out of the basement, get some sun on that translucent skin and go to an event yourself?

for those in this thread who are wondering "What African masks have to do with anything"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_African_Period

@23 Well gee, Mr. Snacks, you were there! Then I'm sure you verified the veracity of this rando's claim? Right? Some guy stands up and makes a claim and to know it's true you called all the parties and got statements. Right?

You researched the school, the teacher and principle, right? Great. The you can tell us their names. Go on. Tell us? When was this? At least give us the date. That you can at least google. No? Oh. Darn.

Nevermind. I know. See. Um. Ok. I was there, too. And say it didn't happen. Thus my anecdote cancels yours.

No. Wait! I was there, and... um, another dude stood up and said that this crazy PC Trans Neomarxist school administrator forced him to teach ten gender pronouns, burn the Mona Lisa, and then made every student EAT A FETUS!

OMG! PC RUN AMOK!!

See how that works?

You're an anonymous troll with five total comments not a paid journalist for this paper. You don't matter. Herzog is theoretically a journalist. A journalists job is record and note facts not merely anecdotes.

@23: The Professor isn't wrong you know. For all we know you could be a dog. You just anonymously saying you were there, and adding no information regarding the veracity of this unnamed teacher at an unnamed school adds up to nothing.
Herzog is supposed to be being paid to be a journalist, so she should try to find out if this person's claims are even true instead of doing the equivalent of "Guess what I heard Billy said some guy said after school by the bike rack".
That's just gossip and shit stirring.

@27 No, dumbfuck. It's not your fellow dumbfuck Mr.Snack that needs the benefit of the doubt. It's the supposed mythical dude who stood up at book reading and made this claim that need to be verified.

How many book reading have you been to? Few I'd imagine since you spend 24/7 squealing your nonsense on the internet.

But for those of us who actually engage with life and do things like book readings there is almost ALWAYS some loud mouth attention whoreing crank who stands up and makes some outrageous claim. From "I was raped by bigfoot" to "My aunt found the tunnel to Atlantis."

So. Until we see a journalist actually do, you know, journalism and verify that any of this actually took place at Unknown School to Unknown Man by Unknown Principle - it's all just Outrage Juice for memes to fed to morons like you.

If the author, or Mr. Snack, or you, or Zombie fucking Hitler were at this book reading and witnessed this claim is irrelevant. It's an anecdote for Grandma's Facebook feed. Not a story for a news paper.

Katie is a one trick contrarian. After predicting Sawant’s doom less than one hour before her victory, you lost all credibility.

You’re as original as any other passé troll who takes whatever position is most likely to stir the pot and then acts like it’s the inevitable truth. Adding up your failures to compare against your few successes, we see that your prediction rate is worse than a coin flip. How you manage to keep your job is beyond me.

So when my son was in second grade in a Seattle public school, the grade-level teachers had joined together to create art curriculum. They wanted more obvious and easy to draw artists and yes, one was Picasso in his Blue Period.

@28 The lady doth protest too much, methinks?

Somebody's riding the ban-wagon .... maybe driving it ....

Easy: teach Picasso only up until the 1930's. By then he'd run out of new ideas (Guernica was a trade-off between Republican Spain's pavilion at the Paris International Exposition getting foot-traffic for Picasso getting renewed relevance. For some reason, in a career slump he discovered he had a political conscience - sound familiar?) at around the same time the abuse in his sexual relationship turned their darkest (no coincidence: a man's libido wanes, his job status declines: who does he take it out on?). Then teach the class about Henri Matisse for a note of human redemption.

@27: Whoa there Raindrop! casualsnack may very well have been there, but they aren't adding anything in the way of actual verification, and that really isn't their job in the first place.
Anecdotes are perfectly fine but they are not journalism.
Verifying the information that is the premise upon which she built this entire post is Herzog's job as a journalist. Until she does her due diligence and verifies:
1) the name of the person who supposedly stood up at this book reading
2) the name of the school and principal
3) speaks to those involved to see if this claim is true
All she's done is what any gossip at the water cooler can do and told a little story that she heard third hand.