The Artist, the Bishop, and the nude statue

In going through the photos of my grandfathers work, I have truly been enjoying the occasional peeks into his studio -- on many occasions there are works of art I recognize -- his own paintings of family and friends hanging on a distant wall, other commissioned work leaning against a table, paintings, reliefs and other artifacts now in the homes of family, and more.  But today's peek into my grandfathers studio really made me chuckle and I may not have noticed it had there not been three slightly different versions of the same image.

The subject of the image was my grandfather with palette in hand before the larger-than-life (8x5) portrait of Bishop McVinney. My first humorous thought was of how my grandfather would have tackled the 8ft high portrait -- he was only about 5 ft himself. Clearly he managed just fine -- but as I am short myself, I did imagine it was a physical challenge to paint this portrait.

That little chuckle was eclipsed however by the three different versions of this image.  In the first image, standing behind my grandfather is a statue of a nude youth. I might not have thought anything of it, except that the second image painted it out with an unknown red substance, and the third image appears to be a copy of the second -- but now b&w (instead of the red).  I'm not sure who altered the photos -- my grandfather or the PJ staff photographer who took the image for the newspaper.

Ah propriety, makes me chuckle to think it could have been such a scandalous image -- especially in Rhode Island in 1954!  (-;