Nude Venus too risqué for London Underground

Transport for London was drawn further into a row over sex, censorship and artistic prurience last night as it backtracked on a decision to ban a Sadler's Wells poster of a naked man while insisting that another advertisement featuring a seductively smiling Venus was too risqué for travellers on the Tube.

A poster for a contemporary dance show portraying a nude man covering his modesty with a large cuckoo clock had previously been thought to breach the Underground's guidelines on nudity. Sadler's Wells said it had had to withdraw an ad for Insane in the Brain, a street dance version of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which opens at the Peacock Theatre on 27 February, because it was deemed potentially offensive to users of London Underground.

Its ban followed a similar decision by TfL to forbid the Royal Academy from previewing an exhibition with a poster showing Lucas Cranach the Elder's Venus.

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CBS Outdoor, which monitors advertising on London Underground, told Sadler's Wells that its poster campaign had been rejected on grounds of nudity and the use of a graffiti-style typeface.

But last night, Transport for London issued a statement saying: "Having taken another look at the Sadlers Wells poster, we think we were wrong to turn this one down and have now approved the ad to be carried on the Tube. Our advertising policy is currently under review and we will be issuing updated guidance in due course."

Before TfL's retreat, posters for the dance show were scheduled to go on display from Monday on the sides of 85 public telephone boxes in central London, rather than on the Tube. The Royal Academy was similarly told it would have to rethink the ads for its show on the 16th-century German painter and printmaker Lucas Cranach. The posters showed the artist's Venus, wearing only a necklace and holding a transparent, gauzy veil before her.

Before TfL retreated, Kingsley Jayasekera, director of marketing and communications at Sadler's Wells, said: "It does seem strange that our poster has proved to be a problem when fashion and perfume-related posters displaying generous amounts of flesh are widely visible on the Underground.

"It's also common to see posters for music and clubs using graffiti-style type faces, so I would hope that this issue will be reconsidered for arts-related images in the future."

In the case of Cranach's Venus, London Underground said the image breached its guidelines, which state that advertising should not "depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context".

A Transport for London spokesman said: "Millions of people travel on the London Underground each day and they have no choice but to view whatever ads are posted there. We have to take into account the full rangeof travellers and endeavour not to cause offence in the adverts we display."

But a spokeswoman for the Royal Academy said: "In this day and age it's ludicrous that a painting that's 500 years old can't be used on a poster. If we thought it was offensive we wouldn't have put it forward. Venus is painted in a very delicate way and the painting shows Cranach at his best."